cuddly_rabbit

Heyhey! I haven't been playing for 6+ months and recently started again. It's fun and tense again, so I'll give it another try. I saw a lot of new items, read about some of the cool changes (tents, fireplaces, etc) and eagerly started collecting loot. But I ask myself: What should I really do to see all the progress that has been made in that time? Would be nice if players could suggest a few "Must do" things for DayZ nowadays because when I played last, it was "get gun, go Berenzino madness, kill, die, corpse-run, kill, die again". Thank you in advance and see you! :) Jack

Depending on what "damaged" means, it could be okay. If "damaged" means, that it doesn't cut well any more, that's realistic after 3 trees you chopped into little useful pieces. But the damage should be able to be fixed by sharpening it with the right tools. An axe should not deteriorate much further than worn/damaged by using it for what it is meant to. There should be something like a whetstone that you can use to sharpen things like axes, and "repair" them.

If it can be detected, I bet it's technically possible judst to wipe every char that carries cheated ammo, or ban the account. Personally, I'd go for a "reset char ramdomly 10-100 times" punishment for people who use that kind of stuff. Would serve them right.

Silly idea. This is not a pvp shooter. Nor arcade. => no, ofc not.

Cool chart. Now adjust the combat ranges to realistic levels, as hinted at here. These are "perfectly aimed shots". And I do not see a fighting distance of over 260 meters, which - tbh - still sounds far. I remember shooting the "lying infantryman target" at 250 m and that was definitly more towards the maximum range of a G3 with ironsights. Taking into account that our character is no trained person and that not even trained persons shoot perfectly, I would say: Limit effective combat distances (for rifles) to below 100 mWe should be able to hit players almost certainly at 50 mEverything above 200 meters has to be very hard to hitAbove that, it should be next to impossible to hit anything.The Mosin does not look as if it was useful material for a long range sniper rifle when going by that chart. Let's get rid of all these 300m+ shots. They add nothing to the game anyway but lolwuttism. In the DayZ scenario, there is no reason to lie in the forest and snipe the people running around in the city. It's harmful for gameplay, so do something against it.and: delete the weapons' attachments completely or keep them as only cosmetic things for our beloved mil-geeks. It's just silly in a survival game that you have to go for a Magpull-whatever specifically. The only reasonable spawn for this kind of specialised equipment is "with a weapon you find" or in an armoury. Mosin compensators aren't found in a bar, on a table :D

Bad ingame experience and encountering too much stupidity and sillines made me try to go kos and just not give a damn any more. It was not satisfying. It was actually so boring that I lost interest in the game. I rather took a break, and I am waiting for more content and then give it another try, instead of turning into someone who ruins the game for others as they ruin it for me. <slight self-irony here> Call it moral highground... but it is highground and it's better to fight from highground. </slight self-irony here>

How about we focus on the survival and therefore the creative aspect first... before we go into the "how to make it pvp-ish" aspect and then find all the possibilities for sick (ab)use? Setting hostages on fire, burning whole forests... melting faces... you got to be kidding me. This is not a sociopath/psychopath/pyromaniac/sadism simulator game. It is about surviving and doing what it takes to manage.

Why is it stupid? You want an easy survival experience and skip the (fun and tense part of) re-equipping? Let's hear reasons.

Impossible to say at the moment. Furthermore, the expectations of what a perfect DayZ would look like vary greatly. from realism survival simulatorto roleplay Z-Apocaypse sandboxto (imo primitive) shooter game with perma-death penatly thrill...If the games manages to stay away from the primitive pvp aspect and focus on the actual survival, and if they manage to make player-player conflict an aspect, but not the main/exclusive content of the game, it has the potential to get into the top 10. However, at an advanced age, I have played games of a quality that DayZ will never touch. But top 10? When done right? Of course.

Good call on the M4 spawn locations. It was really weird to see M4s everywhere. It was not fitting the background setting. About the magazines: Realistically, they should only be found at the crashsite. Finding such a site would be like a jackpot, but the chance to find it should be very low. So... lucky guy, if you get it. You have a gun, magazines and ammo. I do not see a problem in that. About the cheated magazines: Why not... ... make a patch that catches all the users of the cheated ammo... and after an announcement to delete that kind of equipment (like 1 week, or 2)... bans all players that own them, or... reset their chars randomly 10 times with a black death-message "Cheating doesn't pay - 9 more to go", or... random punishment for being part in a gamebreaking cheat

Whatever it means... increase it :D Make us hit less, it will be good for the game as it pushes the pvp factor into the background and encourages player focus on what the game is actually meant to be. Ye, I know... my style of playing is not yours, etc... still... this is only my opinion. ;)

@OP: Solution might be that your campsite gets moved to a random location upon character death. Then someone (other people, or you) can "stumble" into it, for real. And it would be - as realistic - by chance. The relocation upon character death would enforce the lack of memory that your new character has, while you as a player of course know where your camp was. Edit: Wow. Got ninjaed. :D Beans for you!

This sounds awesome! I'll wait for it to become stable, so I can enjoy the features fully. :) But... it rekindled my motivation to give it another shot!

It's not realistic, yes. No discussion there. However, why do people run around like idiots on speed? Because the density of a certain type of player that would just wait for you to stand still and cheap-snipe you is too damn high. I would gladly walk into a city, asking around: "Hello, is anybody there?", but we all know what slow walk or standing still means: "You are dead". Cut the percentage of long-range hits by 50 % (by whatever means), and you can reduce the countermeasure "running/dodging/retarded movement". Limiting players' ability to stay alive in a game environment that is ridden with obsessed killers who can hit flawlessly and easily is not a good idea.

Good point about the client-side/server-side methods of making shooting more difficult. I can imagine how the "must pvp!" fraction on the game (which I am not a fan of) would find a way to reduce the sway/wind/moisture/ammo quality/... parameters and end up with even more of an advantage. Therefore, server-side random dispersion seems actually a very good thing. It's fair, because everybody has the same. It is realistic if you accept that you are playing a random guy who survived by whatever luck he had, not an expert. Missing is just bad luck or a shooting mistake. For an unskilled shooter, these happen quite a lot. So, keep it as it is. Add a few more server-side means of making it harder to fight at the long-extreme distances of the gun range. It's too easy to hit targets at long range, still.

That's the way you play. Not the way I play. I always keep the layer of having a character that is clearly detached from myself in games. Makes the game much more realistic and cooler, and keeps me as an oorp element out of the equation. As all characters are just survivors, it is no problem to just force the "you are just a normal person, no ex-military, no pro-hunter, no [add whatever weak reason you could find to be "better than average"]" approach. The difference between "expert killer" and "mere normal person tossed into bad situation" is what makes DayZ different. In a good way. It's actually one of the only real potentials that keeps it apart from generic, boring shooters.

We should simulate exactly that ineptness of the player character, as it is the core difference between DayZ and MilSim characters. I guess, we have to agree to disagree here. (sun)

It is clearly marked as an Alpha. I liked the last version better than this one. So I stopped playing for now. After the next patch, I'll check in again to see whether I like it better now and to give feedback. I guess it is normal for the state of the game that there is some player fluctuation.

Are you kidding me? It definitely is not an easy shot at all. And a moving target would be very very hard to hit.

Exactly this. Keep random dispersion. I would add that we play a game (voluntarily) in which our character is untrained in the use of guns. If you can't take the fact that you are not the top-shooter... play any other shooter game. To reflect this, dispersion are the same as "random mistakes" that lead to missing the target. Add reaslism, but keep dispersion to simulate the "survivor =/= expert" aspect.

The following thoughts are based on the following basic assumptions: DayZ's tensest moments are that split-second when you hear the bullet whizz past, and you realize someone is shooting at you. The near-miss is a very good element to create immersion.When you are hit, it often means "You are dead". A shot, a black screen. DayZ is unrelenting and your life is often gone before you could enjoy the thrill of fighting for it. We lose massive potential here. The current healing mechanism is silly. You are shot, then you bandage, then eat and drink and you heal up in 10 minutes. That's so unrealistic that it hurts, even though I am fully supporting a "gamplay over realism" approach. Taking into account these 3 basic assumptions, I would like to make the following suggestions: Proposal: Make us shoot more and hit less; The chance to hit another player should be decreased in general. It needs to be rather low. Reasons, why this makes sense: 1. Realism: Untrained, unskilled Survivor =/= Soldiers: We play untrained, random people. Not soldiers. It is damn hard to handle guns, even when you have the training. I am a Staff Sergeant (reservist) and went though infantry training and infantry leadership training and it is still far from easy. Even with perfectly aligned guns, training and experience, it is very hard to hit under realistic conditions. After running, diving down, picking up target, shaking from adrenaline... you will hardly hit anything. Breath control, steadying the gun, etc... that's all advanced techniques that normal survivors do not have. After shooting every week for more than a year, I still suck pretty much at handguns, and can't hit a human shape at 15 meters after running and some stress exercises reliably. And that's only training. No one is shooting at me. An unskilled person would have even less of a chance. And sniping... ye. Just forget it! It is an art. Not a "take gun, aim, shoot, done" thing. I carried the medium range scope for the G3 in training and it is an art to align it after putting it on the rifle. You need test shots, an observer, it is loud, it takes time, the thing needs to be taken care of painstakingly, you need to calibrate it and measuring distances with it is a pain. By no means you hit perfectly where you aim, even after you did everything right. At least not in suboptimal (=realistic) conditions, and an untrained person would not hit anything at high distances. 2. Realism: Bad equipment MilSims always have good equipment. But have you ever fired a rifle that had taken a hit to the barrel? I did. With my personal G3 in basic training, I had to shoot 8-low-left to hit 10-center on a ring targetboard. At 50 meters, prone, supported, shooting range conditions...no problem. At 150 meters? Haha, good joke! And I bet that compared to DayZ gun conditions, my stupid rifle would have counted as pristine and in great shape. In the military genre, people assume that sights are aligned. They are not. They are only (at least in the German military) when the gun went to the armourer. After that, it hits 10-center when you aim at 10-center. Drag it around for a while, throw it to the ground, hit your helmet onto the sights when diving too quickly, basically just use it... and it will lose the accuracy. If you do not believe it, look at the deterioration of accuracy of modern day assault rifles. E.g. the G36 - after firing a lot of shots in burst - loses accuracy to a crazy degree. Even the press picked up on that. I could go on on the quality (or the lack of it) in ammunition. But I guess I made the point: The equipment is bad. So should be our hit chances. 3. Gameplay: Lengthen the rush Hearing that sniper bullet whizz past you and strike the wall with an impact animation is tense. => At least 2 players react emotionally at this moment and at least two hearts start pumping faster. Likely more, when you play as a team. That's the coolest part of the game, when you look for cover, try to figure out where the shots come from, etc. It is 100 time cooler than the sudden end of: "You are dead". => It leaves one player satisfied for a few seconds, and another one frustrated. A good game needs to focus on its strengths and that is that rush that you feel when you realize that you are in danger of losing that character of yours that you have become linked to in some way (I assume that building this link and the intensity of this link will become much stronger the more the game developments proceeds, as it is one of the game's main strengths). Making that intense part longer is good for the game. Reducing the percentage of instant death makes the gameplay better. Allowing a surprised party to get away with the shock improves the game. Giving a surprised party the chance to fight back, makes for a tenser experience for all involved, as it lets both parties of a confrontation participate in the action. 4. Gameplay: Less Artificiality => An easier injury system Look at action movies: the main character is somehow protected. They are seldom shot into the left lung, or the lower stomach when they have to continue. They are grazed in the arm, leg, shoulder, side... why? Because every major bullet wound (or wound in general) is deadly if not treated fast and properly. Fast and proper treatement with high tech medicine. Hm, DayZ? High tech medicine. DayZ? Fast transportation. DayZ? You get the point. Every serious injury means death in DayZ. It is part of the unforgiving setting and it is good like that. Therefore the hit system I suggest is incredibly easy: It differentiates between: a graze: a hit that did not damage much, can be bandaged and heals. Action hereos are thrown against a wall, groan, grunt, then get up and continue. The limp, but they live after banadaging themselves with a necktie or... rags.a serious hit: there is no way a serious hit can be survived in DayZ. Therefore every such hit should result in death. As slow death by internal bleeding, organ failure etc cannot be avoided, we can skip fast forward to the black screen. There is nothing to be gained by a slow dying process in front of a black screen.alternative: a medium hit. That could be a hit that can be "cured" by primitive (= DayZ) medical means (once an enhanced medical system is in the game). Extract a bullet from a non-lethal wound, clamp an artery, things that a skilled medic with equipment can do. But healing should take a lot of time. And somehow, even if it affects you for days of playing, it's still kind of silly. If you had a minor surgery once, you know that even with painkillers and under perfect conditions, it can take weeks to be fully up again. And a bullet wound is never "harmless".That's why I would skip all the "we need organ hitboxes", etc systems as supposed in other threads. And go for a simple "harmless hit" vs. "deadly hit" (perhaps: "medium hit") categories. The combination of: Less hitting, longer rush, longer fights, less artificiality in wounds system would make for a better experience in my opinion. I'm curious what you think. ;) Andy

gibonez got it right with his picture comparison. First 2 are cool and fit. The third one is just generic, boring and doesn't add much to the expectation (although stereotypical, ofc) that I have when I hear "Zombie world".

Sawn off shotgun, to be honest. But if I have to choose from the handguns... I do not have a preference. I use them to shoot Zeds that get annoying and then scoot before players can react to it. But even for that, the saw-off works nicer. The "Booooooom!" sound is just the best.

I don't play at the moment too much silly stuff omni-present feeling of "survival" is broken mindless senseless pvp pvp pvp

Tnx, Ella, for compiling it from those tedious to access sources.