Evil Minion

Depending on your playstyle you might come to a point where this is getting easy and monotone. I think its reasonable to provide some features beyond simply surviving to the next day. Finally "endgame" depends on the player: The survivalist just wants live another day, his endgame is staying alive, healthy and out of trouble.The architect wants to build a base - the bigger the better and defend it against intruders.The sniper wants to find a good position to shoot other people.The collector wants to own the rarest guns and pieces of equipment.The manhunter wants to stalk and finally kill other players.The squadplayer wants to experience and win group vs. group fights.The mechanic wants to assemble a Helicopter, fly around and maintain it.The lone hero wants to find others and help them in any way possible.The sheriff wants to enforce his code of law (maybe in a certain area).The trader wants to improve the loot economy and provide people (and himself) with gear.The psycho wants to kill all of them and destroy their work....Countless options and I think its a good thing to provide hooks for potential goals and potential rewards (why build a base if it doesn't have any use). I don't see "endgame" features as quests but rather as personal goals that are pretty hard to achieve - something to work towards and that might require you to get the basics first. As lone wolves should struggle to survive on their own most "endgame features" should probably be called "group cooperation rewards" instead but a very skilled and lucky solo player might still be able to accomplish some of them. For example "building a base", "keeping a base", "conquering a base" and "destroying a base" should be viable goals that ultimately also improve your chances of survival (or decrease the chances of your rivals survival).

Didn't you know? Chernarussian people usually wear Tracksuit Pants and only some of them actually own Jeans. Though I should probably break the pants theme and replace them with something more appropiate.

Maybe the battle tank would work better if you don't actually add it but only tell players that it was possible while also providing some mysterious parts. :lol:

Thats your problem - you think people want to turn this game back into ArmA. And you go berserk every time you expect someone to work in this direction. But thats not the case here - adding a very rare anti-materiel rifle doesn't suddenly turn this game into ArmA - it just gives people something to look for, treasures to find or monsters to fear. Giving you some values is pretty stupid as none of us has sufficient data. Rare enough to keep the game very different from ArmA for starters. One in ten servers might be a good measure - but as a probabilistic value. Which means smaller shards always get a chance to have them as well. Luck for them - until the weapon gets lost or destroyed. If you are unlucky your shard will not have a single one on it but you will never know for sure. Unless all people who found them make it public and also name the shard they are playing on - which is pretty stupid because there will be hunters coming after you. Now while there is a maximum number on the hive that doesn't mean all weapons will be active all the time. They might spawn just like other weapons - at certain places with a certain probability. However they won't spawn if the maximum number is reached. Server hopping should simply be nerfed to a point where it does not net you an advantage here (see other topic). The real issue is simply hiding away the weapon - but even here this won't last forever. Every stash can be found, every base invaded and every locked chest can be opened. And players having them in their inventory - give items of those rarity a timer. When the weapon is offline it counts down, when its online it counts up (to a maximum). If the timer reaches 0 the weapon is removed from its owner and may spawn elsewhere. Before someone cries "oh the poor casuals are getting punished" - no, having and keeping this weapon is a reward you have to earn. If you can't do it it's simply not the right weapon for you - though you might hide it in some stash and with a little luck its still there if you come back. You also go berserk of you read the phrase "endgame" - because... well I don't know exactly but it seems you project some mysterious "right way of playing" on it. Thats exactly what should not happen. "Endgame" for me is when you start putting your resources into other things than pure survival. This might include getting rare gear you actually don't need - simply because its rare, specialized or cool. Building up and maintaining a base/vehicle etc. Setting up law enforcement in a town, sitting around sniping freshspawns, engaging in squad combat or manhunts for the thrill. Things you do when survival alone is not challenging anymore - whatever you want, its a sandbox. Now as a survival game this "endgame" should not be reached by everyone and it should not be permanent. Even "serious" clan/hardcore/veteran players should struggle getting there and fail more often than not - because its a survival game. If you find one of those rifles with one shot - better use it, you won't stay in this state very long. Now that doesn't immediately drop you out of "endgame" its just an element other players more concerned with surviving (at least 90% of all DayZ players at any given time) would not be able to use because its way to specialized, impractical and maybe even detrimental for their own survival.

Thats because you would need B -> C for this and only a narrow sighted hater would really just assume this to be true. Only because loot is abundant right now this doesn't mean it will stay this way. Only because there are few easily satified PvE elements it doesn't mean there won't be any more. Only because there is an "endgame" it does not mean that most players have to even get close to it. All you do is rage, hate and deny with no other reason than "mimimi I don't want others to be rewarded for their efforts". The game is more interesting if you get rewards and if there are still things to accomplish. Reaching the top and staying there should not be the goal. Trying to reach the top without noone ever making it is far more interesting. As for "rarity would make hackers more common" - you do not want to build a game around hackers. If its possible to exploit game mechanics or code you fix it and permanently remove the hacker. The "we do not include ultra-rare items because they would give hackers an advantage" mindest is bullshit. News flash: Hackers do not need ultra-rare items for this - they can use hacks. Thats like removing the Queen from Chess because "some kid could replace his pawns with queens".

The weather I encounter in DayZ actually mirrors the realistic weather of autumn in my country. There are sunny days but there are also rainy days and sometimes they are a mixture of both.

This should only be "endgame" for that lucky 1 out of 1000+ players and only if he/she decides to do this instead of doing something less boring. The game itself should be ~50% "early game" (trying to survive with that few scraps you got), ~40% "midgame" (improving your survival chances by getting better gear) and only 10% "endgame" (the phase after you got "fully geared" where base building,vehicles, ultra rare gear, cooperative goals etc. become the main focus). Meaning half of the players shouldn't even care about looting for better gear in the first place (having to find supplies and fighting the environment) and 80% of the rest would feel lucky to find high tier civilian or basic grade military loot, let alone sufficient ammunition.

I am not exactly sure what you are talking about. Having an ultra-rare anti-materiel rifle (or even a main ballte tank) as additional choice for long time survivors has nothing to do with DayZ being a survival game. Thats "endgame content" - you don't need it to play the game and you should not even get to see it 99% of the time. Most players whould be busy surviving in the first place using weapons like a Splitting Axe or if they are lucky a hunting rifle. A casual player who logs into DayZ from time to time might never encounter this kind of gear. I think you just confused "we don't need this as a basic gameplay element" and "we should not have this as an exceptionally rare option". Military equipment should be rare, specialized/heavy military equipment should be extremely rare - most survivors should not see both most of the time. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. The game is more exciting if you - after surviving for days without ever encountering military gear - know its out there somewhere. Maybe in the form of hidden treasure and maybe in the form of a mighty dragon that may eat you - or save your ass from some bad guys.

Found some at helicopter crash sites - magazines spawn in military prisons and UAZ wrecks as well. In Fact Amphibia S magazines seem to be the second most common after Makarov mags. Don't underestimate the .22LR! A Sporter kills with a single headshot - and as damage is currently only determined by cartridge the Amphibia S should as well. Then its pretty silent has almost no recoil and ammo is plenty even in looted areas. The Sporter 22 is also quite accurate and both weapons are easy to shoot. I regularily switch my SKS/Shotgun/... for a Sporter 22 with magazine during "midgame" (the phase between being freshspawn and sufficiently geared).

They go underground now - keep following.

There are two types of rarity: spawn-induced static rarity (spawn rate, spawn points etc.)player-induced dynamic rarity (taking things, using things etc.)And those interact with each other as well. More ammo types increase the former and decrease the latter while fewer ammo types decrease the former and increase the latter. Now look at the extremes: With only one ammo type every ammo spawn over the map would spawn the same kind of ammo but also every player would need it. So finding ammo in an area that is already looted would be close to impossible but finding ammo in unlooted areas would be guaranteed. With every player having his own weapon with his own ammo they would not compete at all - searching an already looted area would give you about the same chances of finding ammo than searching an unlooted area - in fact if ammo types share spawn points others looting an area would over (a longer period of) time increase your chance of finding your ammo there. So fewer ammo types put a greater emphasis on moving around the map looking for areas your rivals did not yet pick clean resulting in transient gameplay while more ammo types put greater emphasis on finding a weapon that uses ammo not used by too many other players resulting in resident gameplay. Now a good mix is probably the best for the game so the number of different cartridges should reflect this: not too many but also not too few.

The more different cartridges you add the harder to balance the player experience between "I can find tons of ammo but not of the right type" and "I can't find much ammo but when I do its the right type". Having less ammo types means players are more likely to use the same and compete. Having more ammo types increases the chances of every player having "his own" ammo leaving the rest for others to find. I think both guns and ammo shouldn't be too common (speak: pretty rare) in the first place. Now having too many calilbers spreads suitable ammo thin resulting in "nobody can find the right ammunition for his/her gun" (if ammo in general is hard to find) or "everyone finds ammo pretty easily if he has the right weapon" (if ammo in general is not that hard to find). Having fewer ammo types means more players compete for the same source. Having more ammo types means more players can "escape" into different niches. Now more niches can make for harder competition inside each niche but there is also much less competition between them. So FN Fal, SVT-40 and M1 Garand would be able to coexist much better than FN Fal, G3 and M14.

More like data from bench shooters - because I only talked dispersion up there (the error to expect when shooting perfectly at perfect conditions). M24 would be similar to or even better than the value given for the SVD. But maybe using values of "Sniper Mosins" is a little optimistic (even though the model is one) - what is the accuracy to expect from an average Mosin today?

Does anyone know that Dean basically confirmed the M1 Garand on PAX? This would probably mean .30-06 will be there as well - not an unrealistic choice but having three full power cartridges (.30-06, 7.62x54mmR and 7.62x51mm NATO) seems a little much to me.

This list is just a compilation of feedback from my perspective focussing on negatives I came across when playing the game. That does not mean that I think the game is bad but I think there is still a lot of improvement aside from adding new features. Its not a list of bugs but rather a subjective list of things that bug me when I come across them. So there might be bugs and flaws as well as design decisions I do not agree with. Now the game is in development so I hope most (or even all) of them will get fixed at some point. random sounds from random directions all the timemost actual actions are completely silent even if they shouldn'tyou press a key - nothing happensyou press a key - nothing happens - 3 minutes later: character suddenly performs the actionyou press a key - nothing happens - you press again - action is performedyou press a key - nothing happens - you press again - action is performed TWICE"take into hands" not available when there is space in your inventoryno separate button for taking into hands/droppinguse button also used for reload actions as opposed to leaving this to the reload buttonfire mode selector gives no feedback on how it is setcanceling actions will completely undo their effectsome actions (e.g. drinking from a pond) cannot be canceledyou can look around (alt) while eating or drinkingyou cannot walk around your change stance while eating or drinkingyou can use some items or perform some actions without using your hands (e.g. reloading a gun inside your backpack)action animations play after the action is performedwhile prone you can spin around on your belly without any difficulty and completely silentwhile prone in high grass it blocks your vsion but distant players can see you just fineyou can get stuck in some places without being able to leave themyou cannot see already written notes when writing on a paperyou cannot draw on paperyou cannont use spraypaint to spray walls or static objectsshots are either very quiet or completely silentall weapons have the same swayall weapons that use the same ammo do the same damage.45 APC deals way too much damage compared to every other cartridgehandgun damage to high compared to rifle damagebuttstocks, handguards and bipod reduce dispersion rather than recoil and swayscopes with zoom reduce dispersionweapon attachments usually lack a tradeoff system often being straight upgrades insteadcivilian weapon magazines/clips are much harder to find than the gunssome buildings are spawning tons of loot while others only spawn very few or no items at allpublic buildings like police stations spawn tons of foodmilitary buildings like prisons spawn tons of foodsuper markets don't spawn tons of foodthere are wells everywherethere is only a very small number of different character modelsclothing protects against gunshots but not against bleeding caused by zombiesclothing gets destroyed by way too few attacksclothing has one big storage space instead of separate pocketsclothing storage space persists after clothes get ruinedyou cannot wear both a shirt and a jacketthere are clothes clearly worn by zombies but nowhere to find in loot spawnsclothes and weapons do not degrade while being wornthere are 24/7 daylight servers and not all of them even announce thismost servers restart every 1-4 hoursserver restart does reset the time of daythe majority of servers has 3rd person enabledloot spawn rate does not depend on server population (?)loot spawns do not depend on player densitythere is too much loot in generalthere is too much high quality lootzombies can see you from a kilometer away through three walls and decide to charge youzombies sometimes ignore players clearly visible and close to themmelee attacks hit even if the attacker clearly missedattacks hit even if the attacker already diedzombies can hit you by attacking some "ghost you left behind"animals don't flee on sight but rather ignore threats further away than melee attack rangezombies and animals die way to quickly especially when compared to playersits possible to respawn in non-coastal cities (e.g. Novo, Cernaya Polana, Polana)switching servers costs only 60 seconds waiting timeswitching servers multipe times over a short duration does not increase this costonly 30s respawn timer and the possibility to respawn close to your corpse and/or other playersjoining a server is possible at any location without making a noisethere are no zombies in NovoAlso bathrooms (ingame) seem to make good hiding spot to add points to this list without logging out or getting shot.

Maybe inside military areas but outside you would probably find much more Winchesters. Now Chernarus is a fictional country so you won't know for sure which weapon are "authentic". As a former Soviet state with a recent NATO intervention its very likely to find Soviet weapons and modern NATO weaponry. However, we don't know about gun laws and the weapons used by Chernarus after the Soviet Union stopped being a union. Very exotic weapons like the Armsel Striker are unlikely but the Winchester is not (neither are VSS and AS Val). Now for civilian guns we can assume that popular models might also be popular in Chernarus. As for militay equipment - NATO and Russian is very likely as are firearms from former Soviet states. And of course the chance of finding one of the most produced firearms worldwide is pretty high as well.

Resting rifles would be nice - however it has to be implemented in a way that feels right. Might come with a "not able to stick your weapon inside/through walls" feature - the rifle is rested if its just above such an obstacle. Universal bipods... I am not sure if I understand correctly. Do you want a common bipod that can be used by every weapon)? I don't like this. As an attachment my opinion is there should be much more people using the weapon without. Also its not authentic to plug the same bipod on every weapon. Some of them (AK variants, different NATO rifles) might use the same model but for others you would need to find specific ones. Having bipods for many weapons as opposed to just a few would be nice though - but they should come with some downsides (weight, cumbersome, bad for non-prone/rested positions). Though for some weapons (like most handguns) its just silly.

Develop a better pick-up system: more fluid, responsive, allowing hand-to-ground, ground-to-hand and hand-to-hand (bypassing/decoupling inventory management) Add gun slings and remove magic weapon slots Make guns without buttstock or with folding buttstock smaller so they might also fit into some backpacks

My thoughts are that virtually everything else written in this devblog is more important to me - but we will get 5.45x39 ammo which is nice I guess. Opens up some additional weapon choices and in my opinion screams for a LMG as well. I wonder if the game will keep the AK-101.

I will go to Cherno runing around like an idiot, looking like a bandit and shooting zombies like a noob. It helps target practise without having to shoot freshspawns or getting shot by random campers.

Expanding on this by taking a closer look at weapons. Instead of making ting overly complcated the current system (ammo, dexterity and dispersion) gets expanded by two additional values: Weight - If a a general weight sytem is to be added the weapons weight would obviously increase the total weight of its user. But aside from that weight should have some additional effects. At first it should increase the base amount of sway. Then it should increase increase fatigue - both in a passive way (going to "out of breath" while holding the weapon in your hands) and in an active way (holding your weapon in aimed position) and the maximum amount of sway gained from it. Those effects should be reduced according to stance (prone is best and standing is worst) as well as almost completely negated by a bipod. The positive effect of weight would be reduced recoil/muzzle rise as the weapon soaks up some of it. Ballistic Factor - Thats how effective the weapon is in firing its ammo. A simple multiplier for both damage and bullet speed longer weapons should have a higher factor than shorter ones. This means a rifle firing the same round as a handgun would cause it to hit a little sooner and deal a little bit more damage. This might also apply to different rifles firing the same ammunition with longer and manually operated guns having higher values than shorter automatic ones. This value should often - but not always* - correlate with dispersion. This value is especially important if cartridges are used by both handguns and rifles (like .22LR or .357 Magnum).No another issue right now is the prone stance - more exactly that you can spin around on your belly without causing a sound and without my problems. This would give additional power to heavier weapons that can mount a bipod like sniper rifles and machine guns - which might both reduce their chances of being added and their actual enjoyment in game. By restricting the firing/turning arc in prone position to some kind of "extended free aim" they would be much more vulnerable to flanking attacks and the limited firing arc would reward/punish a players positional choices. With the suggested new attachment system and the additions above heavier/more precise weapons become possible without becoming unreasonably powerful. Even without this I am positive those things would create a more interesting and authentic multi-dimensional firearm system with less "useless" weapons and attachments. *For example the Mosin should have a slightly higher ballistic factor than the SVD but the SVD should be more accurate.

DayZ sway being authentic is actually depending on the weapons: For handguns its probably just about right or even a little to weak. For an AK without any attachments there should be way more sway than we have right now. But for a typical rifle with buttstock its a little too much let alone a rifle with bipod in use. Reason: Attachments do not affect sway - what they should - but dispersion instead - what they shouldn't. And all guns have the same amount of sway right now. In the end sway might be a little more than you would get in real life (you should not underestimate the level of sway you do get in real life though) to make up for other aspects you cannot simulate ingame - because players can adjust to it but they can't adjust to their character randomly tilting the weapon for example. Sway might also start at a lower level but increase over time as your arms tire from holding up the weapon. This increase should happen at different rates: moderate (standing), slow (crouching), very slow (prone) and not at all (bipod in prone position). The amount of sway should depend on the weapon weight so submachine guns and hunting rifles would have less sway than assault or automatic sniper rifles which in turn would have less sway than anti-materiel rifles and machine guns. Buttstocks should significantly decrease sway which means handguns - despite being relatively lightweight - should have quite some sway. Handguards might also reduce sway but to a lesser extend. This also opens up some tradeoff options where one attachment is better at reducing sway/fatigue while another is better at reducing recoil/muzzle rise and a third one offers better dexterity/mobility. So for example using a drum magazine would greatly increase your sway and fatigue (can be negated by using a bipod) but offer more firepower in return.

Sneaking up behind snipers is too weak in the current build for two reasons: A sniper in prone position can spin around on his belly without any trouble. So while sneaking up on a prone shooter in reality gives you a significant initiative bonus even if he manages to notice you in DayZ it isn't different from sneaking up on a standing shooter. Also I believe this spinning move is completely silent. Gun sounds are pretty quiet right now (if you can hear them in the first place). Its like everyone is using a (very effective) silencer - most of the time you can only hear the bullet impact so you often have no idea where the sniper might hide.The solutions are pretty simple though: Don't allow spinning around while prone (and also while sitting thats just stupid and ugly) but allow for some kind of restriced firing arc (more than free aim but significantly less than 180 degrees) while prone and add some louder and more powerful gun sounds you can hear from quite a distance. Snipers should be nerfed: add weather effects affecting the bulletadd different sway for different weaponsadd fatigue for aiming over a longer time (depending on weapon weight)restrict firing/turning arc while prone/sitting (see above)louder gun sounds (see above)non-muzzle attachments should not affect dispersionmore survival aspectssniping loot should be pretty rare and might require frequent maintainanceBut also buffed: authentic dispersion values (making a Mosin hit reliable at up to 800m)being able to hit a target that is further away than 1000mauthentic damage values/protection by clothing (not speaking of one-hit-kills but rifle shots should be very powerful)attachments should significantly reduce sway and recoil (bipod should prevent fatigue)high grass etc. should better conceal players over longer distancesrunning speed should be toned down to be more authentic

I believe loot is already respawning during uptime and not on restart. Now frequent restarts server two purposes: allowing to better test persistence and clearing all this rubbish on the server ensuring a smoother gameplay. However its annoying as... I would like to see server restarts becoming very rare at some point. My idea is actually to have every DayZ server running on a 24 hour cycle (as real life also runs on a 24 hour cycle and most players will choose servers around them adjusting the server speed/time offset allows most if not all of the players to play during daytime anyways) and restarting at midnight only (and maybe not even every ingame day). This allows for undisturbed gameplay during the daytime hours (when most players are active) while also allowing to play in the dark if you want to. To hell with those 2h restart 24/7 daytime servers! They are not needed (and they are also detrimental to game dynamics - keep them on private shards). If I want to play during daytime I can always join a server during daytime. And if I want to be kicked by a server restart... wait, I don't want this.

I can alt+tab in most situations but sometimes the game doesn't seem to want me to - mostly during loading periods (game start etc.). It can cause your controls to haywire though, punching and shooting around.