Sister Ray

Perhaps the devs could try pushing 1st person forward from time to time to combat it's dwindling popularity. Just something to urge ppl to at least to give it a try. I remember feeling like a second class citizen when there were 70 and 100 player server tests on experimental, but all of 'em 3rd person. I understood why, though; 3rd person is more popular and they wanted to fill up the servers to test their stability. Experimental isn't supposed to be fair, the only reason of experimental branch is to test stuff in the most effective way. This just got me to thinking that what if all the experimental servers were to be 1st person only, for the duration of certain experimental branch testing, for example .59? I think many of the 3rd person enthusiasists would still suck it up and play on 1st person servers to test a long-awaited, new patch and the servers would fill up just fine. I think. If the popularity wasn't where it was supposed to be, the devs could just open the 3rd person servers (if it wasn't too much of a hassle). This way some of the 3rd person players who haven't really got used to 1st person might just get used to it and even like it. And if not, they could always wait for the patch to hit stable and play the game how they want to play it (It's something that, I, as a 1st person player, have done during an exp branch that didn't have any 1st person servers). A bit artficial, yes, but I seriously think the 1st person servers might need some artificial help...

I have noticed the emptyness in 1st person too... It's even harder for me to find at least half-full servers, because I mostly play on mornings. I get up as my gf is leaving for school. Then, being unemployed, I either fiddle my thumbs the whole day or run around on almost empty Eu servers :D It would be very easy for me to gear up, too easy, but I enjoy "mid-tier" stuff the most so... What should I do? Camp hunting is kinda fun, but also gets quite boring on an empty server... Recently I have started to play on servers that are overseas, on a different timezone, such as dayzunderground. It's at least partially full at 8am UTC+2, but after an hour or so it also starts emptying up rapidly... Thankfully some of the servers are at least somewhat full on evenings, maybe 1 or 2 of 'em. That's not much to choose from, though... I'm jealous of the 3rd person players and the variety in servers they get to choose from. I enjoy having several different characters on different private hives. Once in a while I get an urge to start anew. The ideal situation would be that I could just start playing on a new server, with a new character. Not possible. I have to suicide one of my 2-4 "finished" characters. This leads to me committing suicide at least once a week with one of my chars :D Usually going out in a blaze of glory isn't even possible because of low player numbers. It's easier to suicide than to run around for several hours, trying to find someone to kill me. Once in a while I try to start playing on 3rd person servers, but that leads nowhere as I get bored and unimmersed the moment I spawn in. I wish I could play on 3rd person, but it seems I'm not desperate enough for it yet... But, all in all, I guess this drought of players is just temporary. It seems to me that a lot of players are currently taking a break, waiting for the infected to return, renderer, etc. This obviously affects 1st person more, because we were already a minority... Let's hope for better days!

Yeah, I miss the damage system from the early days. It all seemed to start going downhill when the items in your inventory started taking damage and protecting you from it... Most of the guns in the game lack some serious oomph right now. The one who hits first, with any weapon, should have the upper hand in a firefight, not the one with the bigger gun. I'm ok with not every caliber being a one-hit-kill, but there should be some serious repercussions to getting hit. As many others have said, a bandage doesn't heal a gunshot wound. I'm glad that the damage system is getting revised in .59 and the wounded animations are getting closer to implementation with the new player controller. Let's hope the medical system, in it's entirety, gets some much needed love. You shouldn't be able to just brush off gunshot wounds...

As far as I know, Arma III has handled gamma exploit pretty well without limiting the gamma slider. Haven't played Arma III myself, but I've never heard any complaits about Arma III nights. Here's Smasht's explanation of the system that Arma III uses to combat gamma exploiting.

Yeah, I'm hoping that the decrease in energy over range would also be simulated some way in the future. No idea how hard it would be to implement, though...

Yeah, I've also been waiting for a more realistic way to zero our scopes. I was also pretty sure that we'll get one some day, but your Scubaman3d quote makes me a bit scared, actually. Why does it have to be only viable in the context of an infantry sim when we're talking about mostly civilian scopes? As you said, there are easier scopes to play with if you can't be bothered to learn how to zero your hunting scope properly. Ironsights are simple and straightforward too. This is excactly the kind of a mechanic that would bring some skill into the table without forcing any grindy, lame, mmorpgish skill systems into the game (I agree 100% with agouti on this one). Why not add some helpful ingame books, such as a manual for the hunting scope? This way, the only thing standing between succesfull sniping and you would just be your willingness to learn. I really hope the devs give some second thoughts to this. Thankfully Dayz will have mod support in 1.0 so that even if the devs decide to stick to the old zeroing system, we can still have our way :) My op suggestion is simplified, because I'm fairly sure that rehashing the zeroing mechanics isn't that much of a priority in this stage of developement when the current mechanics are working at least ok:ish (not gamebreaking). Just changing the max range of zeroing seems like a simple placeholder system to implement. Because I feel that we really need something to nerf the sporter range at this point. Sporter is so op right now. That would be ok, if it was realistically op, but it's not. Lack of range (along with low stopping power) is basically the only drawback that the Sporter should realistically have. Mark my words people, if .57 hits stable with .22 weapons still zeroable to 800m, we'll all be drenched in silent, fast semi-auto fire from 800m away, and die oh so many times without any idea where it came from. If the people catch onto the op:ness of the Sporter, that is. An afterthought: Perhaps the best way to save ourselves from 800m Sporter sniping is standing under a roof, so that the bullet hits the roof above us when it drops from the sky :D

Well, you should re-read my suggestion. I was saying that currently you can make unrealistic 800m shots with .22, and that you shouldn't be able to make those. I also suggested a way how to make those longe-range shots impossible. Currenly you can zero sporter w. hunting scope up to 800m. This sends the bullet in the air in a realistically impossible angle so that it hits its target at 800m. To counter this I suggested the scope should only be able to be zeroed up to 200-300m with the sporter.

As seen in this Wobo's hunting scope guide, it's currently possible to make accurate 800m shots with the Sporter and the Trumpet. The Sporter is perhaps my favourite weapon, even more so now, in .57, when I can finally attach a scope into it. Still, it feels really cheap being able to make those accurate 800m shots with it, which should realistically be close to impossible, because of the lost accuracy on long range and the trajectory of the bullet. If I understand right, when zeroed to 800m the zeroing mechanics send the bullet in the air like a mortar would. I think the best way to counter this (until/if we get better zeroing mechanics in the future) would be just to make .22 weapons with scope only be able to be zeroed to 200-300m. I know it's still possible to make longer distance shots by aiming above the target, but as far as I know, the bullet trajectory of .22 is currently fairly realistically simulated, meaning a fast drop of the bullet. This would mean that in order to hit a target beyond 300-400m, you should be aiming at the sun or something like that. Correct me if I'm wrong. This seems like a quick fix, but come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure if it's really that simple. Is there a possibility to alter the properties of hunting scope used with a certain weapon, or would changing the range you can zero the scope to affect it's function with all the weapons, as in making all the weapons only zeroable to 300m with the hunting scope? Also, perhaps the devs have already figured this out and ready to implement the changes in the next exp update. We'll see...

Yeah, that's what I though. Thanks for the reply, man!

Yeah, I guess limping and other wounded animations will help in conveying the impact of getting shot at, which is currently very lacking in. The situations where I shoot a guy in the chest, with him just running away, bandaging and returning to fight have pissed me off since the mod. I'd still like some kind of incapacitating-via-administering-enough-pain -mechanic into the game in addition with the wounded animations. Perhaps the incapacitation should be delayed to simulate the effects of adrenalin. I'm not a firearms expert, so I don't really know how severe the incapacitation of that and that caliber should be (To be clear, I'm not suggesting adding some kind of incapacitation value to every caliber ingame, just have the incapacitation level be determined by amount of damage taken). Come to think of it, getting wounded, as in having to limp, is an incapacitation level in the system I'm talking about. Sorry, this is getting a bit mixed up :D Also, imho, just raising the shock damage values of all weapons so that it's easier to get knocked out, would be a nice placeholder until we get a more complex damage system. I just hate how weak some of the weapons feel.

A very good idea! It's something I've been thinking about too. Many of the weapons in Dayz feel unrealistically underpowered atm. It should be a big deal getting shot with any firearm or getting hit with a heavy/sharp object. The best and most realistic way to balance weapons would imho be to make them all more dangerous. Still, I'd add some stages to incapacitation so that there is a somewhat bigger variance to results of getting shot with weapons of different calibers. For example, get hit with a single or two .22 bullets -> you fall down because of the shock and pain, but you can still get up and try to limp to safety. Get shot with a higher caliber bullet -> you fall down, but can still crawl for several meters before passing out. Get shot with a even larger caliber -> you're 100& incapacitated and can't do much more than writhe in agony and bleed out, if you're left without medical assistance. I'd also like that you could shoot while lying on your side, with a shaky aim, if you're not too inacapacitated. You should perhaps be able to bandage yourself, administer morphine, etc. in the lower stages of incapacitation, but be completely helpless in the higher stages. This way, the difference between calibers would lie in the after-affects of getting shot, as in can you still be saved? And some calibers would be more reliable in their incapacitating/death-dealing properties than others. This way, you'd be more concerned with getting shot and wouldn't go like: "oh, he's got just a makarov, I'll just charge at him" and just patch yourself up afterwards. I also have a medical suggestion that I've been meaning to post as its own suggestion, but it fits here perfectly, so here goes: There should be some changes made to the effects of morphine and painkillers. Also, the "pain" status from the mod should be brought back to standalone (I'm sure it'll make its way back eventually). First of all, morphine should be only useful for pain management, not miraculously fixing limbs. Healing a limb should need a splint and some time. First use for morphine and painkillers should be pain management, as in combating the effects of pain. The effects of pain could be shaky aim (as in the mod) and/or something else, you tell me. Secondly, morphine and painkillers should be able to be used to combat the effects of incapacitation. Using morphine or painkillers should lower the level of your incapacitation and perhaps make you a bit more resistant to it. This way, a wounded person lying on the ground, unable to do anything else than cry in pain and bleed out could be brought back to it's feet, for a short time. It wouldn't heal the injuries, instead it would only make you able to bear them for a little while longer, and stay somewhat functional. How functional you would be after a shot of morphine would depend on your injuries. Even if you weren't that much in pain anymore, you still couldn't use that wounded leg. Morphine and painkillers should differ from eachother in the duration of the effects, strength of the effects and how much time it would need for you to feel the effects. The effects of morphine should be instantly felt, with painkillers it should take some time for them to effect you. Painkillers would be less useful in the heat of the moment, but perhaps you would take them before the battle, predicting that it would be very possible to get hurt during the fight? Taken pre-emptively, they should make you more resistant to the effects of damage (as in damage causing less pain). You would still get injured/hurt by hits, but you wouldn't go down that easy because of pain. It's a bit gamish, yes, but it's the best I can come up with. Also, with prolonged use of morphines and painkillers, addiction should be a very real danger. In a hopeless situation like the apocalypse you would be very prone to addiction, more so than in normal life.

Good suggestion! I've always wondered why people keep drooling on about these huge barricaded bases with helipads, barracks, garages, jacuzzis, dog houses, neatly mowed lawns and all that jazz... I get it, it's cool, but no matter how well you've barricaded and locked it up, it's still bound to get broken into, quite possibly when you and your guildmates aren't even online to defend it. It's far better if your base can't be found, or even seen.

Does disabling persistence mean still using the old placeholder loot system, with persistence disabled, or a gutted version of the CLE? Something like having the loot spawn as in experimental, but respawning on server restarts? Anyway, I quess there are big wheels turning when stuff breaks and takes time to finish. No worries. I wish more people realized that they should take some breaks from time to time when they start to feel burned out. I know it's hard though :D

I can get onboard with your suggestion, but I think the best way to implement something like this would just be to make player corpses stick around longer (decaying over time of course). This way we, ourselves, could be the added atmosphere, post-mortem. Of course there is always the problem of players just returning to their own corpses and taking back everything they lost that didn't get looted by someone (as some people do, even now with corpses disappering fairly fast). So, in that way your suggestion might be better. Some popular places such as the prison island might become a bit overcrowded by stiffs, too :D

I suggest that you take a break and check on the progress later, if you're still interested. It's easy to burn yourself out if you play and follow dayz too much during early access, I'm no stranger to that myself either.