jfn3000

To take this conversation away from people talking past each other: I'm genuinely curious: when survival becomes more demanding and less forgiving, and zombies become more of a threat, potentially responding greatly to the sound of gunfire, will your playstyle change much? Will those elements become simply a distraction from manhunting random people, or shift the balance of what you spend your time doing? I could care less what you do, personally. Some days I could be a bandit/KoS hunter, other days I could leave people locked in rooms with their ankles broken Misery style, with the halls filled with zombies. I really hope you can cuff/coral zombies in the future... Am I normal in real life? Close enough.. but if I get to RP crazy, then I can respawn!

Aiming intelligently over varied height obstacles is pretty natural and doesn't require much special training. But if you get into the nitty gritty of it, there is a lot of extra sauce the military puts into it. They put a lot of work into finding out the subtle ways to position your body so that your weapon is supported by your skeletal structure in all those stances instead of muscles. Bones don't get tired and shake. Turning your body into a random height steady tripod does take a fair bit of training. Staying rock solid after half an hour at the ready sure as hell takes training, but getting off a couple good shoots from a half-crouch is certainly doable with a little practice. I'm calling it a tie.

I agree that 'z' is a toughie. 100-200 ms isn't too bad sounds, so I could see it be implemented well. But you have to remember server lag/desync, and the desire to really do two things in the 200 ms, may make it not as smooth a move as it sounds. I'm fine dying to my own stupidity, but when game mechanics get me hung up and killed I get all pissy. If I can automatically step up a foot tall step to climb a staircase, then why the fuck do I get stuck trying to walk over 6 inch tall rocks?

I think scoped hunting rifles and maybe a military rifle are probably all that's needed. They were trying to defend against the zombie apocalypse after all, not rebuild the Soviet Union. Now, ghillie suits on the other hand... you don't have to be a sniping spawn camper to appreciate those. If you decide to live in the wilderness, a homemade ghillie suit would be good gear to have when going on town runs, sneaking from the treeline into town from bush to bush.. that sounds like fun. Homemade for sure, since the military probably wouldn't have been stocked up on the, in this scenario. Even more, I think it would be cool to duct tape branches and stuff to guns in addition to or instead of ghillie suits. Make em look more like tree branches for better camouflage.

To be honest, even 8 minutes is too long to be holding one single key. 'W' is an important key, and I don't want DayZ to be the one that kills it. Here is why auto run is not as bad as it sounds, and is a fairly good addition to the game. The assumption is that it's implemented as described, of course. It's realistic to sort of "auto-walk" while you pay attention to your torso and hands to do something or have a conversation while moving.Auto works on walk, run and sprint, and when sprinting drains your stamina you drop to a run and it doesn't start sprinting for you again. Optionally again to a walk depending on the stamina mechanics.Auto running in a forest or field have (probably different) chances of tripping you, and then you're just prone until you do something about it for not paying attention while running through a forest.If you wanna run in the street, I say go for it.So the addition of auto run won't let people go AFK unpunished by not allowing them to stop paying attention to the game without dying. This is how almost every other part of DayZ works.

I get frustrated when I get killed on sight. No one likes to die and it makes me feel stupid. Doesn't matter what game. At least in DayZ I don't spawn in the middle of firefights. I will probably KoS at least one person. Probably not someone in my sights running through town unless he deserves it, but don't surprise me! In a real zombie apocalypse, if you turn around and find someone's been behind you watching you and they aren't a traumatized child, you should probably shoot them.

I'll say it again: sticky!!

I love compressed cycles so I can actually watch the sun come up or down. I respawned once near dusk, and it was trippy to watch the light slowly fade to black on me while I snuck through the woods. Then the server kicked me and reset and it was high noon when I logged back in standing on someone's doorstep like a Mormon! As far as brightness goes, I love that lack of light really translates to pitch black. IRL, dark is freaking dark. But as many point out, night isn't always that dark. A full moon night is pretty damn bright, and it's really those new moons or being enshrouded in forest or a dark building that black out your vision. I think a compressed day/night cycle with correspondingly compressed moon phases and associated brightness changes is perfect. It opens up different gameplay elements to people, while retaining the feel of "this is the way the world works, survival = deal with it."

That does pose an issue, but in my mind, it's on a much longer timer. The main reason for allowing these campsites and buildings to be reset without a server restart is so that people have a chance to experience DayZ from the start. The longer you let people build up, the closer you get to the recurrence of civilization, which starts to oppose the basic foundation of the game. It would be neat to see the dynamic between two philosophically opposed cities in such a brutal game, but there's more longevity if people still commonly have a chance to play a role in the founding of those cities. So there's a balance between growth and starting from scratch, since both are big parts of what the game has to offer. It would really suck if the best parts of DayZ are memories of what it was like in Alpha/Beta because now everything is established.

From this awesome post: http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/175596-summary-of-dev-qas-from-streams/ I trimmed out a huge amount of it so that it was only thread-relevant stuff for context, so I definitely encourage everyone to read it (and bump it for stickying!) It sounds like there is probably a good plan in the works right now, so this might stay a relevant suggestion in case they can't get the balance they want by pulling on the existing strings.

This is awesome, +10 points :thumbsup: ! Can we sticky this in the Suggestions Forum? I think it would be fun enough for people to read that they actually would, and maybe trim some of the zombie clipping threads, etc.

The game's controls aren't all that bad, I'd give them a B/B+ overall. I think the bigger reason people that like them say "learn them" and people who don't say "WTF is this?" is because they're not common. A de facto standard has arisen amongst FPS and most first person games in general, and this scheme is doesn't conform that much. Since other FPS's are so prevalent, ArmA 2 and DayZ are like the wall charger that mounts upside down, or covers up just like 1.25 of the next spot in a surge protector. The bigger issue is one of animation seamlessness. The Assassin's Creed series and GTA IV/V (V better than IV) both do this very well. If it didn't look like the character model was stopping like a doof before doing something, people would probably be raving about it's ridiculous accuracy. That said, the mouse acceleration is definitely backwards. If it's for weapon/equipment weight, it's bugged, and if it's on purpose for ease of peering around a room, then it needs to be smoothed better, which is a polish issue and probably not an Alpha priority (but it does need to get done!). It honestly feels a little like within a certain range it's using a weight based reference on just the head, like you would expect for free look. If so, good thinking(!) and it just needs to flow better. I can elaborate elsewhere, but I'm not sure if that's a Suggestion or a Bug :p

There is a point that different cultures have different opinions on things. Europeans are usually cooler with nudity, and if I recall correctly Middle Eastern/Arab/Persian what have you cultures actually have much bigger issues with feces than Americans, so there is a balance. But, there are good reasons to have "waste removal" and mitigating factors that make it less easy to abuse: You can't poop or urinate on command. There is a window where you "can" go, but don't "have to" yet, but any griefer is only going to get one dump a day. The ability/necessity to poop doesn't automatically mean that feces becomes an in-game item. Even if it does become one, for reasons below, that doesn't mean you're allowed to force-feed it to people.Bodily functions are distracting, but necessary. As someone else mentioned, you can't do much else during this time. You're exposed and in danger. You also don't get a choice. You don't "have" to stop an engagement and chow down on some beans or antibiotics, but try doing anything while you have to whiz! This mechanic means that if you eat enough to be healthy, you have to risk going to the bathroom. You can't just chug lake water to get hydrated if you don't want to be making potty stops all the way to Cherno.Bodily functions are also part of an in-depth medical system. Not pooping is a good way to get sick and die. Getting diarrhea is a good way to dehydrated and die. Rotten food can essentially shut you down without killing you. You get diarrhea and now have to stop what you're doing to go, and drink tons of fluids to stay alive. If you just go in your pants, you invite disease and hypothermia. (Fresh, healthy) urine is also a disinfectant or water source when you are out of other options.Scat is an essential component of tracking. How do you find deer to eat when you're not sure any are around? There are a couple ways, but I guarantee animal poop is easier to implement than the subtleties of bent twigs. Poop is an important part of animal/human presence, especially when they don't want to be found. Small town look vacant with all the doors closed? The steaming pile you just found in one of the houses says otherwise. And it's still warm... In short, I agree that there are wrong ways to do it, and that people are going to take it to as disgusting extremes as they can. But more important than my ability to live with being offended, waste management is one of the fundamental components of survival. I don't think it should be simply dismissed out of hand for the offense factor, and stating that it has no value is simply false.

I do like this idea. For this particular game, I don't think invulnerable until moving would work, because you could literally not touch anything and just spy. Information is too powerful in this game for that. But if it was a fixed spawn timer, like 5-10 s, that could work. The biggest issue is what you're allowed to do while invincible and in control of your character. Even if only move and look, you could still game the system. But it is also an issue that you can fully log in to those around you before your client reflects that. Getting killed when you still have the black loading screen isn't any fun.

I like the integration of using the skill being a part of the process! Not the challenge-based scheme version, but requiring use to train and/or "use it or lose it" both fit with the realism aspect. In Everquest, I think, crafting wasn't a guaranteed success, which was incredibly frustrating because precious materials were still lost in the process. But in this case, that could be useful. It might be a little too painful to consume mats on failure, but if your bandaging only works 75% of the time because you don't actually know how to do it right you have incentive, but not a need, to get it up to 90-95%. Two possible ideas that came to mind (assuming use increases skill regardless of having a book): Skills increase faster with the book in inventory, or maybe requiring you to have the book out while you do it if it's a one handed task.Training by use could raise success rate, but only training with the addition of the book would allow better recipes (e.g. advanced splint). There could be a period where you can craft the recipe only with the book before you learn it permanently and can ditch it.Keeping with tradition, this would all have to be more or less silent to the player still. And, I support the absence of skill trees. They are tons of fun, but this is a game that should have a near-complete lack of character sheet. I really enjoy being naked old me in the woods, so to speak.