rickyriot

For me it was the exact same situation. See a car, it doesn't have all the components. I get inside as I believe that is how you can tell what's missing - I could be wrong with that, I honestly don't know because looking around I see no "see car state" option so it seemed like the next obvious thing - and it hits me with instant death. I know what it is, it's a bug relating to the positioning of the cars as to resolve it you take off a wheel then replace it again and the car "resets" it's position allowing you to enter without dying. I only know this after doing a google after the second time - as I say the first time I thought I had fallen foul of a boobytrapped car (if that is possible, but then if it is you just know someone will do that to f**k with others! In many ways I wouldn't mind that if it was both noticeable and you can disarm the trap). Even if getting into the car isn't the way to determine it's damage status, perhaps it's more nuanced in that you visually need to see what's missing (ie: car won't run, open bonnet/hood and see visually there isn't a spark plug - and if that is the way to do it then I applaud the nod towards realism), the very fact of getting into a vehicle even if it's not working shouldn't instakill you. I will add that it's been hatchbacks that have killed me on both occasions so I can't comment on other vehicles. I'll be honest and say I've not seen any vehicles other than them. Ultimately the most frustrating element is that you realise what a bonus finding a vehicle is. You'll spot it evaluating it's rough visual state, give it some time to check nobody is camping it, then work out if you have enough carrying capacity for the parts as well as whether those parts are likely to be lootable close by or maybe you'll go looking for stashes buried in case the car was running and when someone went to log out they removed and buried the "useful bits". It's only after maybe 5 minutes getting all excited, doing the maths only to have it cruelly snatched out of your hand by a bug.

Been killed twice in a row* by this bug, that was after being killed 3 times in a row by the bug regarding not being able to swap out melee weapons. That, combined, is about 5 hours of gameplay. Both of these things are fundamental to the game, the fact that these bugs exist in a 1.0 (1.01) stable branch release is really poor. As a developer myself I always give the benefit of doubt when it comes to bug identifying and testing but things like this are a real black mark against a game that really can't take the added weight of even more game breaking issues. * You might think that twice falling for the bug is daft and it is, but I didn't realise that was the bug until I googled it. I had thought someone might have planted a landmine near the car as a "fun joke". Turns out the joke was being played by Bohemia, not other players...

You say "too strong", I say "factually inaccurate". I fully understand how difficult coding effective and believable protagonists can be, however I would contest that in it's peer group (whether that be Miscreated, 7 Days to Die, State of Decay, Dead Island, Dying Light, Left 4 Dead or any other number of zombie open world survival games) it's easily the worst implementation. What's disappointing is that this element of the game has been core since the mod, and while the mod had clunky enemies that was a mod released 6 years ago. We really shouldn't be "at this position" so late in development. You can argue the engine, animation, character and all sorts of other elements have changed - and you would be right, they have - but that isn't an excuse for the state of them when you consider this is an official 1.0 release. There is also the point that you can abstract the base elements of AI and work on them in isolation - essentially removing any potential bottleneck such as game engine, animation, character, etc and Bohemia have had a very long time to do this - it just seems they didn't consider it a priority in any sense. That's their choice, at no time am I saying they are "wrong" in the way the development has been done. Have there been mistakes? Sure, I think we all accept that, but simply as a game player I shouldn't have input into how they create their games. However I have an opinion on the end result, as do others. Has there been improvements? Of course, although to be fair some of those were retrograde rather than progressive. I spotted zombies climbing a chain link fence the other day. Not sure if that is a 1.0 or 1.01 inclusion but I'd never seen it before. That's an improvement. It's not like I'm hating on the current system because I want to, it's just a reflection of the game outside an echo chamber and in comparison to it's peers. Am I on record as saying the visual and aural environments, including the frame rate that it runs at, have been improved considerably? Yes, I am. I will also say the UI has also improved with the 1.01 release (albeit it wouldn't be hard to improve from the last iteration). It's not like I've seen the improvements made to the game and stubbornly ignored them, my issue is that the protagonists are key. Without them this is nothing more than a PvP game, and if we are being honest here there are numerous "by the numbers" PvP games out there that do what DayZ does but better.

** For clarity: We all know the "bug" where you can't change your weapon because there is not enough room in your inventory to place the item currently in your hands. That is not a "bug" nor is it what I'm talking about here. ** So, for my last 3 playthrough's I've been killed by the zombies, and it's all down to some weird melee bug. At least it seems like a bug to me, and if it is then it's quite the showstopper, and I'll be interested in whether others are suffering from it. The scenario is generally the same; I don't have a bladed weapon in my hands but I do have one in my inventory. I swap to the item via the hotkey, press right mouse button to get into a fighting stance and click left mouse in order to slash. Fine, we've all done that loads of times before and there should be no problems right? However recently I've swapped the weapon into my hand, raised my hands to fight but when left click to slice it does nothing. No animation, no sound, nothing - as if I hadn't pressed left click at all. This happens randomly it seems. There seems to be no common denominator in regard to weapons or inventory space. If I try and swap out my weapon it won't allow me (except once, and the picture below shows the result!), I am stuck with a weapon I can't use and one I can't swap out - leaving me defenceless. This has now happened to me 3 games in a row, and although it's not every time I select a melee that's several hours of play that's been lost by my melee utterly failing me. One time I did get the game to swap to a weapon, it allowed me to pull out my pistol (but not the Scorpion that was held in a separate loot slot), when it ended up in my hands this happened... No, I'm not putting up a defence, that is the "natural stance". I am not actively blocking, although the image was taken "while I was in combat" I did manage to run away to capture this screenshot. What happens if I press right shift (in some way to cancel the blocking hand gesture)? Nothing. What if I press left click, well it fires the weapon - directly up into the air. If I lean forward as if I could somehow tilt the gun to a more horizontal level and shoot a zombie then the aim remains directly into the sky. I can't imagine I am the only person suffering this issue. On a side note: I was happy to see the 1.1 update - although in my (somewhat cynical) opinion it's the "let's release the stuff that wasn't ready for the 1.0 release date, despite the game not being worthy of a 1.0 release yet" - but I shouldn't complain as we are at least moving in the right direction these days. Has that update fundamentally changed the way weapons/melee/inventory works? I checked the release notes and I don't see anything listed.

I don't really understand what you mean, my item is already on the hotbar. Not sure what you mean by EQ but I presume it's the [tab] inventory. Are you saying I need to click the item in the hotbar rather than selecting it via a hotkey? I'm not sure how possible that is when in close combat though - and it's close combat when you find out if the "slash" move is bugged. I mean, thanks anyway, if it is a work around despite being a finickity one. The new UI in 1.01 is a lot better though, much more responsive and (unrelated to the bug) the ammo is easily distinguishable, which is nice I suppose.

OK, well at least I'm not the only one suffering this. I have to say, I don't believe I can hide my weapon. I tried all sorts of things. I understand how easy it is for bugs to get introduced, but this just underlines the game is not 1.0 ready.

"They are almost perfect now"

Since the introduction of modding it's becoming clear to me that the things the dev team have failed to add into the game, despite us hitting 1.0, will be added by modders. "Missing" weapons, objects and maps already fill up the Steam Workshop and I can imagine it's only a matter of time that the true survival stuff (stuff that really _should_ have been part of 1.0) will be rolled in not by the devs but by modders. What can't be fixed by modders though, is the enemy AI - or at least from my understanding it isn't an easy thing to "mod in" (and I am happy to be corrected on this). This requires the dev team to do this and in many ways I think this should be one of the highest priorities. Unless of course Bohemia are looking to just set this as a PvP game with zombies as a pointless annoyance rather than a threat - and for me this is where the game is at just now. Apologies if there is an actual dedicated and valid roadmap that details when enemy AI is going to be completed (and it's fair to say it's miles from completion just now), I followed the status updates and most of the chatter in the forums and the most I've garnered is that "yeah, that's something we'll look into". The question is, when....

I'm unsure if this is an issue with the server browser but I have less than 10 official 1PP servers, when before it was easily 5 or 6 times that. There are the non-official ones of course, and while that's an option, I would like to see the number of 1PP only official servers increased.

Nail, hit, head. The melee is very poor, although in my defence I use the term "AI" to represent all enemy actions including the melee and not just their movements outwith combat. As I said before the poor melee is somewhat of a surprise considering many status updates trumpeted the new animation system and how it would link seamlessly into combat. So both amadieus and BCBasher make the same point (what is wrong and what do you expect) so I'll answer you both at the same time. What I am looking for is a non-player enemy to act in a manner that is both "realistic" and challenging. Realism, while we are clearly dealing with a non-realistic threat of a zombie apocalypse (or whatever lore you wish to offer up), should relate to how the enemies interact with their general surroundings and the player. In terms of positioning, I can't really complain. No random zombies in the middle of forests, while lots in the middle of cities. That's fine, although clearly it would be lovely to see more everywhere. However the movement is clunky, they are akin to an abstracted layer than inhabitants of the world you are. They will glitch through things, will teleport and/or suddenly react and run off through a wall then disappear. Other games such as Miscreated or 7 Days to Die are hardly leaders in developing AI but their protagonists act like they are part of the world. So movement is one. The second element would be interaction. I don't mind too much about the "area of influence", as that can be tweaked. Want more sensitive zombies, sure that can be done. The melee when you do interact is, as mentioned in my reply to Parazight, doesn't give you the feeling that you are actually in a fight. Take out a knife, right click to swipe, swipe three times and they are dead. All the time the zombie just stands there taking the punishment and not reacting. Now to be fair if you hit them when they are arriving into their "melee space" you will get a reaction but that's the only time I see it. Finally what most people would consider AI, which is their pathing and routes taken around the world seems utterly unrelated to that world. Eseentially I am looking for zombies that are an actual challenge, they are not that at the moment. I'd even put up with jerky and glitchy movement if the threat for them was genuine. They are annoying because they are glitchy and a pain in the ass to fight. This would be fine if the game was solely PvP with some extra environmental challenges but that isn't how DayZ has been pitched. If Bohemia removed the zombies and said it was now an out and out PvP then I'd have nothing to complain about, it's because it's always been pitched as a PvE (players, zombies and environment) that I expect the competence of those threats to be equal - at present it does not seem to be the case. Some might say of all this, "but it's still early access" or "it's a beta release", but it's not, it's 1.0 and this sort of thing should have been resolved before a full 1.0 release. And finally this... Do you feel condescension is the way to go here, bud? I feel it's probably not.

I'd struggle to agree with you on "enjoyable". For me it's also debatable whether the Arma2 mod and/or the intial SA release had worse AI than we have now, I'd say they didn't. I'm not expecting miracles, lots of games have sketchy AI and it is a difficult thing to get right, but the surprising thing (from someone with no specific insight into the game's development) is that Bohemia have had years to create the core of the AI that had nothing to do with the engine changing - which most would accept was the major blocking issue in SA development. Honestly though... if you are happy with them as they are now, then I'm happy for you. My post was asking when the AI will be looked at, not knocking those who are enjoying it as they are.

IMO: The main threat from the zombies comes from the very poor melee and their clunky as hell movement The only time I've died from them is when they have glitched through the door or the game bugged my weapon selection. The melee aspect is a real shame as it was showcased extensively when 0.63 was being rolled out, claiming the new animation system would provide more interactive close combat with unarmed enemies (whether that be zombie or player). It doesn't feel like the zombies are being hit when they are and they show limited reactions to your attacks throughout any exchange. I'm not saying there has been no work put into this, as you can see there has been, but the game feels like it's in early access (let's forget this 1.0 money grabbing nonsense) and the AI feels like pre-alpha. Don't get me wrong, I fully understand how difficult it is to write AI, but it shouldn't be tied to the engine so any claims that was what was holding up the AI just doesn't float. The core of any AI is the abstraction of the enemy logic, so essentially you could write AI in nothing but a form of pseudo code, not tied to any environmental elements. Bohemia have had 5 years to create that logic outwith any engine and have either failed to do that or if they had a limited success it's not been released to the public. Ultimately Bohemia and the devs decide where they go with 1.0+ development. I have absolutely no say in that, and it's right I don't. I do have an opinion though and that opinion is that while the environment allows for expansive and complex gameplay there is very little in the way of threats while you are enjoying that gameplay - other than PvP of course but then not everyone likes camping the NW Airfield every single game. Minor edit: Just to confirm, there is no mechanism for modding the AI in the game is there? I have made that assumption based on some of the content from modders, but it may not be true.

I'm going to give you a "thanks" but it's for the answer, not for the information itself! I heard someone discuss AI sometime around the 1.0 launch and I have a feeling that will be the audio you are referring to. Although I don't remember a time limit. As for "years"? That is stunningly disappointing and quite surprising. Unless they are looking to create super sentient entities it should not take that length of time. I say this as a developer myself. The devs have already had many years to get this right and have failed to address it over that time. Sure the engine, animation, environment has changed over that time but AI routines are abstracted from that (or at least should be) meaning when you come to plug it in it's tweaking the edges not re-inventing the wheel. I don't want to sound melodramatic, but the idea I'd need to wait one year, let alone two, has me reaching for the uninstall button. What's the point of playing a game where one of the key tenets of that game is broken, always been broken and in fact is in a worse state than when the first SA release happened. 😞

The game is an effing mess. Which is a shame. The things I'd let slide while it was Early Access are no longer the same things I'm willing to let slide in a full 1.0 release. So many bugs, so many things not added, it's cynical but I honestly think they released the 1.0 purely for financial reasons and nothing else. Have I got my money's worth from the title? Sure, many times over. So what am I complaining for? No reason, other than it was an absolutely golden opportunity to make something absolutely spectacular but years of bad decisions and more years of catching up have thrown that away. At best, DayZ can only ever be a clunky PvP. The zombies though, that is my biggest issue, what an complete and utter fustercluck. Never have I seen AI implemented so badly and so pathetically, and I've coded 8-bit games in the 80s. Believe it or not they are currently in a worse state now than they were at SA's launch 5 years ago! That is really unforgivable considering the part the zombies are meant to play in your game. Without them, and the tranche of survival aspects that are still missing, this game is nothing but an airfield PvP only sausage fest.

** This thread may seem negative, but I'm not complaining about the current stage the game is at, more just highlighting why I will not be playing it ** As the thread title says, congrats on hitting 1.0 - I've been a player of both the mod and SA for what seems like a decade now and it's provided me far more enjoyment than the £15 (or whatever) I paid for the SA version on release. Not sure of the exact number of hours but it's quite a lot to say the least. Having this longevity with the title doesn't make me an expert, my opinion is as valid as any others' and some may entirely disagree with me. That's fine, and highlights the flexibility of DayZ's gaming style. However... I believe the 1.0 version is effectively the "DayZ PvP Release". For a game to be based around zombies and have those zombies so utterly poorly implemented (and that's an observation not some hysterical flaming) seems strange. When they shifted to the new engine and started reworking everything you would have thought that the zombies would be quite a high priority. Sadly they seemed to have been ignored. They are actually in a worse state than the original SA release and even the mod! It's incredible that 5 years later the game's zombie handling has gotten worse. For example, can you imagine FIFA making the footballing AI worse with each release? It would get rightly panned. Now, EA is not Bohemia and FIFA is not DayZ but I'm sure you see the point I'm making. Aside from the zombies, the lack of a (craftable) bow and arrows, very limited farming implementation, no fishing and mish mash of all sorts of missing "non PvP" features means this build is the equivalent of any run of the mill FPS - and a feature lacking one at that (for example the ability to vault and climb are now mainstays in these types of games and are still to be implemented in 1.0). If you want to fight PvP then there are many other better titles out there. We've always tolerated the gunplay in DayZ SA, it's never felt as precise as Arma and I believe the current implementation is lacking in terms of bullet drop and several other key physics affects (don't quote me on that last one, although from testing that seems to be the case), because overall the game's environment made up for this. As a counter balance to my comments, the world does look good, the aural environment and it's cues are lovely. The graphics really compliment the map and, in a stunning change of direction from previous SA builds, it actually runs smoothly - I remember the days of crawling through Cherno struggling to get double figure FPS! The environmental effects, such as cold and wet, are infrequent bedfellows of DayZ but it's nice to see them rolled in more fully than before. Just navigating the world as it is provides a unique experience and it's that experience that I think has saved DayZ in the minds of the gaming populace. I wrote a while back that ultimately my game style is far more survival than it is PvP. I like to look like a crazy mountain man, wearing clothes made from the animals I've killed, using weapons I've crafted myself, wandering into a city to get supplies; maybe taking out the odd zombie and/or player then disappear into the forest. That comment got a few likes, so I can only presume that I am not the only person who enjoys a PvE, and a stealthy strategic PvE at that, compared to a sh*t show of campers and overpowered snipers circling the military loot spawns of an airbase. So, ultimately improvements have been made, and I'm optimistic that DayZ can come round to the sort of game that I like and more importantly the sort of game promised by Dean at the very start. If not? C'est la vie, as I said I've got my money's worth. However while people may slag the game for it's current faults, I'm stepping back from that and saying, "well done, but you're still nowhere near the sort of level that the game needs to get to before I return to it". [[TL;DR?]] I'll not be playing DayZ until it expands to include "proper survival" elements rather than being a fairly clunky PvP as it is now.

Long time player, from mod to SA to many variants of SA to current build. Overall I'd like to say I've got my money's worth out of the title. I paid nothing for the mod (albeit I paid for A2) and I bought SA on the very first day it was released on Steam for something like £15 (GBP). Overall I have certainly recouped that amount in terms of enjoyable game play however in the last 2 years or so I have drifted away from the title simply because it was becoming a mess. It locked itself into an engine not capable of providing the experience that was being aimed for. I totally understood the decision then to move to a new engine and despite long delays the resultant look and feel of the game has certainly improved. It's cost a lot of time, and lost a lot of it's player base but it was a decision that is now showing to be the correct one. With that said I'd like to address the core mechanics of DayZ which should, imo, come down to 3 main tenets; Player vs Player, Player vs Zombie and Player vs Environment (PvP, PvZ and PvEnv). Pretty self explanatory, I'd hope. The question we have to ask ourselves is, "has that been achieved?" I appreciate the current beta release is not complete (but as this is DayZ, nothing has ever been "complete"!) and it's certainly an improvement on 62, which is obviously a positive, but I do not believe that my initial premise has been achieved - or at least to the level of it's peers. Granted there is nothing quite like DayZ in terms of game experience but there are a lot of DayZ-esque games, many of which perform considerably better in these core aspects. So in short: PvP, the gunplay has not been fully implemented, certain scopes and guns are "missing" and from my experience the gameplay has been clunky and not reflective of real world ballistics when trading shots with people. Key bindings are not available making an already different control scheme all the more difficult to adapt to. I took on someone with a shotgun recently and no amount of cajoling could get it to fire more than one round per time without having to reload the weapon - something that may get better with experience, at present seems to be a bug rather than a feature. The UI makes it difficult to differentiate between ammo calibres due to the black circle stating the amount. I honestly can't comment too much on the hitboxes purely because the gun engagement seems so unreliable that it was difficult to really tell how well that has been implemented. PvZ: Awful, just awful. This is my biggest gripe with the latest build (although certainly not restricted to it). Fundamentally the thing that made DayZ different was the interaction with the zombies. I know AI is difficult to code, but it's not impossible, yet it beggars belief that a game that effectively positions itself as a zombie survival game has such a glitchy, unreliable and poor implementation of the main game enemy. When you write an engine for a game that specifically needs these AI elements, you really should expect that element to be fairly mature when hitting beta. As it is, zombies spawn out of nowhere, glitch against all sorts of objects, have entirely inconsistent movement and are dumber than a bag of extremely dumb hammers. What's more when it comes to actual engagement you just get out a melee weapon and hit them a few times and they are down. No challenge and certainly not fun. PvEnv: Beta is clearly being rushed out the door to placate those waiting, and I understand that. I am a developer as well and of the things that you can control, timescales and people's expectations are not some of them. However, to not include survivalist elements such as fishing or bow making seems short sighted. Leg breaking and interaction with the environment via jumping and vaulting either doesn't exist or is a very poor implementation of it. I have stood next to knee high fences, ones that in real life I'd just step over, and I can't get past it no matter how high I jump even at full stamina. Sure I can walk back and take a run at it, but that's not the point, it's not realistic to need to do that. PUBG is not DayZ, not at all, but it's noticeable that they went from an inability to vault to vaulting and climbing within several iterations. Ultimately I am just one person, my say (even as an experienced gamer) shouldn't have any more weight than any other average Joe, however as we have now reached the fated beta release it seems incredible that for all the effort that has been put into the engine to make it look and feel as it does (and the environment at times is a joy to experience - that has been one huge plus switching engines) that the core elements of the game are so poorly implemented in it. Now doubt I'll get the "it's only beta" and "those things will be added later" but honestly while I was happy to accept that argument, especially so when the engine itself was replaced and more time was needed, but as we have hit beta I believe it's acceptable to criticise the offering before us. Not unfairly, and I do not believe I am being unfair, I've kept my counsel for years hoping that the new engine would deliver a far better PvP/PvZ/PvEnv offering but sadly it just doesn't. What does all this mean for a player like me? Well nothing really. The game continues to sit in my Steam library, and will do in hope rather than expectation. As it is, this beta release is effectively still 6 months away from having even close to the requirements that DayZ has promised time and time again. I do wish the developers well, and I really wish I wasn't spending my Saturday morning writing out a post that will no doubt be pulled apart via false dichotomy and whatabootery, but I just had to vent the feeling that after waiting for so long for a beta to finally drop that it's insufficient in so many departments.

Essentially you've done exactly what I said people would do.. Although for a start you are incorrect in saying I called the engine non-dedicated. I at no time suggest that, in fact the opposite. It's the fact that an engine written (or at least altered) specifically to underpin DayZ doesn't cover the main elements. There have been huge strides in the environmental aspects of the game. Something I have highlighted but the lovely eye and ear candy is of little value when the framework of the game is so clunky. However, Vernon, you have just used the time honoured excuse "it's only alpha" except it's no longer alpha so that now needs to be retitled "it's only beta" and trotted out the same old tropes "don't worry it'll all get fixed". That excuse, my friend, is irrelevant in the point I'm making and I'd actually go so far as to say you've actually missed the point of my post, in that of the three tenets that the game supports (and you could of course argue against those as being tenets) you would expect a dedicated rebuild engine to support them from the get go, not be an add on for future updates. I don't doubt things will be added, this isn't a tirade against the devs or Bohemia at all and certainly shouldn't be considered as such. I have followed quite closely the development of the game, and have done so since SA, so to suggest I haven't is just a bit ad hominem to be honest bud - although I'm sure you didn't necessarily intend to do so.

I've posted a separate thread about this, but I still find it incredible that one of the main USP of DayZ is it's zombies but despite many years in development and a complete redesign of the game engine this core element is still miles away from being "acceptable". I get it, AI is bloody difficult to code and I am entirely convinced the devs have spent a long time developing it, but it's highly frustrating that the game engine itself seems incapable of handling zombies even at the most basic level.

Ammunition. All through the stress testing and new UI I was sure the devs would change the way the ammo is shown in your inventory. The ugly black circle showing the amount covers a good proportion of the "ui square" with the images used for the ammo itself is hard to distinguish due to colour scheme and size. Yet roll along to beta and the ammo is still a mess. Sure some things are easier to spot but it really does need a considerable fresh lick of paint. I'm guessing something like PUBG would be one way to go. The drag drop seems responsive and the items are clear and identifiable. Obviously PUBG is not DayZ so it couldn't be a straight like for like copy but the current UI is pretty ugly (which would be fine) if not a little glitchy.

I generally like the idea of needing to hold the ammo in order to reload. Adds to realism/immersion, imo. For me I hold the item needing reloaded (either gun or magazine) in my hands, place the ammo required into a toolbar slot (so gun/magazine in slot 1, ammo in slot 2) then press the [2] on the keyboard and it'll load. One thing I have had considerable problem with is the shotgun. I can fill it full of ammo no problem, I think it's either 6 or 8 rounds, but after firing the first shot, I cannot for the life of me get it to que up the next shell other than clicking [R] for reload. This gives the classic pump shotgun animation. However holding [R] also ejects a shell, so if I have 6 shells in the gun, fire one (so I have 5) I then point and click and get an empty barrel sound, so I have to reload (using [R]) this then places the shell into the barrel ready for firing but also ejects one shell. This means for every shot an reload I am spending two shells; one that is shot and one that is taken out of my gun and placed into my inventory.

That is the point Godless, you aren't meant to "fix" the "fix" of the gamma "hack". Personally I like it, and have always hated those who exploit the game engine in order to reduce the challenge of the game and also to gain an advantage over others. What is the point of using gamma to correct night time? Just play day time. If you don't like night time, go to a server that is all day and no night.

...and which game, if any, should DayZ "lean" towards? These are two different questions although the answers could be the same. I will not create a poll as there are too many games with melee combat to list them here. --[ quick head's up, this is a long post, the TL;DR is basically the title and the line above ]-- Ok, first off, just what am I referring to and secondly what has spurred me on to pose this question? When I think back to all the DayZ incarnations there have been, from the mod to the original SA release to all the different iterations to where we are now the one thing that is surprising is that, for a zombie survival game, the zombie fighting is probably one of the weakest elements. We all sort of know why this is, DayZ came from Arma which in turn is far better at handling firearms than it is melee weapons. Don't get me wrong, the idea of wading through zombies with a blood stained axe was one of the most enjoyable things going when I first started playing DayZ. Remember the website had that counter at the top to indicate how many people were dying? It was some time ago, but I'm sure a few will remember that. It just highlighted what a dangerous place Cherno was. Thing is, we accepted it as it was because we knew the basis of the mod (Arma) and that it was really the only thing around that had that sort of cross over open world survival/pvp/military gameplay. Fast forward to the recent release of the 63 and fighting the zombies is still not that convincing. Sure, that "realism" is a difficult thing to achieve, and the devs have made progress (to an extent) regarding that. and yes people will say "but it's still in development", and yes you would be right, but for me it's still not overly convincing. This brings us to my first question: Which game does melee combat the best? Now for my second question, taking into consideration your answer to the question above, should DayZ lean towards that game? Or is there another that you feel it should aim towards. Now we have to accept that certain melee implementations are not going to be viable. Say for example you said "Far Cry" and some of the fluidity of FC5 when taking down enemies is very enjoyable - a lot of it is scripted and involves upgrading a skill tree in order to achieve all the "takedown" tricks - but enjoyable it is. Now while fun, is not going to work in DayZ. It's not the same "environmental feel" of the character, FC always feels like it's characters are "living on top" of the open world it has, rather than "living in" and tend to be more flashy than practical. That might be a personal thing but I think most will accept that FC melee mechanics are not the way forward. However games like SCUM (just for example - which is equally in it's own development cycle) is comparable to DayZ. Again this is a personal thing but I feel you are part of the environment and the zombies feel part of the environment. For me, this thread was half inspired by playing SCUM recently and while I am not comparing like for like here, I found the melee combat intuitive, predictable and more importantly believable. The "zombies" have a weight, they are knocked back and while the current system they use is pretty basic and the AI attacks all to easy to get around, it is (imo) more enjoyable than going hand to hand with a zombie in DayZ. I should point out I am not saying SCUM is a better game, just commenting on this particular element. Don't get me wrong, it's not perfect, there are still things wrong with the it handles melee. So, why this slightly lengthy post? Because I believe that melee should be one of the grounding elements of the game. Sure, the idea of zeroing in on a squad camping a hillside with a sniper rifle is fun. Laying down some "spray and pray" after being unexpectedly caught in the back streets of Cherno is as enjoyable as it is frantic, but the bread and butter of DayZ and especially for newbies and fresh spawns it will be the underlying core mechanic for the first hour at least of each new character. I want to be able to creep into a village armed only with an axe (or machete - the OP b*stard that it is right now!) and, when spotted, be able to go toe-to-toe with zombies and be confident in not just my movements but theirs too. I want to "feel" the weight of the weapon and "feel" the weight of the enemy it hits. The zombies should react in a "realistic manner". Certainly DayZ is getting closer to that than it has before but it's still, for me, not close enough to be "enjoyable". Anyway, apologies if this has been a little rambling. I'd be interesting to what people's opinions are.

I know a lot play DayZ for the PvP but for me, I want to see a return to the survival aspect. I want to kill wildlife with a bow, farm my crops, craft my own bag and clothes and every so often wander into the city for ammo and freak people out by being some crazy mountain man.

I believe my answer is still the same. As it is, you should be able to jump over a fence from a standing start when you are standing still next to it. It's not a big deal, I mention it so that other people will realise what's going on. The way it is now will be changed, of that I am sure, it may be to change the jump mechanism or to provide a vault.

Not questioning your physical dexterity but it's very easy to do exactly that. Edit: I will concede it would be much harder with a fully loaded backpack. I wasn't doing it with a fully loaded backpack though.