11tw

Day Z zombies are not trad. zombies, they are 'infected' zombies. Traditionally, a Zombie is a dead corpse resurrected by magic or spirits. More modern 'realistic' zombies are just people who have been infected with a disease which makes them rabid and dangerous. This is clearly the kind we have in Day Z, so don't complain if they aren't 'Night of the Living Dead' style zombies...

One game which got the 'sneaking' element just right was The Last of Us, which allowed you to insta-kill zombies if you snuck up on them, using a shiv. The shiv would either break immediately, or if it were of higher quality, you could use it twice. This could be applied here too! Right now there is no really good way of killing zombies with melee weapons (I know alpha has glitches, save the comments) and a sneak attack kill for zombies would add a level of tension and intrigue that the game is currently missing. I suggest that certain items such as knives (which could be found as loot in kitchens) could be used when crouching to kill a zombie in one hit from behind. I just think this would add another layer of realism to the game, as real life survival is about weighing up options. For example, I am walking between houses in a city, and I spot a zombie. She hasn't seen me yet. do I: (a) avoid the zombie? (b) shoot it? © save ammo and punch it? (d) waste a knife and stab it? These choices make it a game of balancing different play styles, forcing you to learn and adapt to survive. Keen for feedback as always! 11tw

I know that this is going to get some 'realism hate', but how about shoe sizes? If running in the shoes two sizes small slowed you down in the long run until you started to limp then shoes which were the correct size would become more desirable. For men I am guessing the size would be a random choice between 7 and 11, whereas women would be between 5 and 8. This would add more realism, and make looting less easy than it is now, but I realize that this sort of thing is a bit much for some people...

The way the zeds behave suggests they can't smell survivors, so moving like them to hide kind of makes sense. To avoid this being too OP, zeds would have to be able to smell you if you got too close while shuffling. This would have to be much slower than normal walking as well to avoid it being too multipurpose as far as travelling goes...

My suggestion, in short, is to make it so that when you die, there is a VERY long cooldown timer. This timer would have to be over and hour for full effect (my personal suggestion is 12 hours, but this is up for debate). The pros go as follows: -makes ghosting completely impossible -makes death meaningful, so people will act more realistically when threatened -will make kill on sight less common and 'your gear or your life' more common (because people will believe that the people who they have robbed won't attack them out of fear of a long wait before respawning. Therefore this means that some bandits won't bother wasting a bullet on you.) -will eliminate deathmatching in all vanilla or 'traditional' servers (my suggestion is only implement this on ordinary servers, not ones with titles like: 'deathmatch!!! last man standing!!!' and finally: -makes every choice count That last one is just the whole point of survival games. Now you might be thinking: 'but that is so unfair!', and that is why I like it. This game is a lesson in suffering, and when you see that 1 hour (or twelve...) wait when you die, you will truly experience suffering. To be honest, a 12 hour wait wouldn't be as bad as you think, as believe it or not, I have other things I could be getting on with (play something else, read a book, sleep, go to the store, watch tv...) As a sidenote, this could be reduced to a minute in servers which are already bloodbaths. I don't mind if people ghost or respawn to fight the same people, as I avoid those servers.

When you jump from a barn ladder (2.5-3 meters) you wouldn't die. You probably wouldn't even sprain anything if you are good at crouching upon landing. If you are weighed down however (e.g. wearing a backpack and/or rifle) then you would probably sprain an ankle. Anything above this height might break something. Fun fact, children die 50% of the time from a five storey drop. That is 12 to 15 metres. Allowing for adulthood, let's say 50% at 15 metres average. Then estimate for the extra weight... 12 metres give 50% survival (this is an estimate, but better than what the game has now) Now if you jump that distance, you will probably survive with one fracture. If you trip or are pushed you will land either body flat or head first, in which case death is basically guaranteed. However 44 people have survived falling from aeroplanes without a parachute, so clearly there should always be a small chance of surviving even the highest falls, as extra height doesn't make a difference once you are past terminal velocity. 11 of those people by the way had no wreckage to grab on to, and survived with nothing but a bunch of broken bones. Right now the game is way too harsh on falling. That is just a fact, and it needs to be fixed. Of course the surface needs to be taken into account. Concrete is less forgiving than water (however if you fall from a great enough height the surface tension of water will make it worse than concrete), and bushes should give softer landings. Grass, particularly when wet, gives plenty of give when you hit it, so this should help improve odds. The system just needs to be improved so that jumping from a first storey window as a last resort could be doable, but two stories isn't.

to be honest General Zod's comment on awarding niceness convinced me that this reward system is pointless, however the core idea still works.

the suggestion is based on the problems of ghosting, deathmatching, kill on sight and banditry. Basically a lot of the stuff that is wrong with the game would (in my opinion) be fixed by implementing one of the ideas discussed here. My favorite is the idea of bandits taking longer to respawn and heroes respawning quicker, rewarding niceness.

Lots of cool stuff in here, unfortunately there are individual threads for some of those. Don't mean to be rude, but if you search the archives before posting it prevents the forum from becoming messy. Also, congrats on your first post and welcome to the forum!

The 12 hours thing was just an idea. My core suggestion was one hour. That isn't so bad. Further suggestions have included the idea that your survival time would affect how long you had to wait (i.e. new spawns spawn basically instantly) and others have said that bandits should take hours to respawn but heroes should respawn much faster. These are all interesting ideas. Don't dismiss them with an inconsistent and somewhat-lacking-in-clarity argument. The problem you are complaining about, fresh spawns being killed by bandits then having to wait 12 hours to respawn? No one suggested that! In fact the 'bandits take hours to respawn idea' would curb the problem you just brought up. Please learn to read before replying in such a condescending and annoying fashion. (As a sidenote, beans to everyone who has joined the discussion in a constructive and non-fallacious manner. Kind of disappointed that the opposing argument doesn't seem to have anyone arguing their arguably valid points effectively)

and you know what the dev's are doing and not doing because you know stuff and we are all taking that for granted. Everything being suggested on this forum will not be in the game for a long time. I can only guess that when they are done with their current list of much more important tasks that the dev's will take a look at this forum, from start to finish. What they include and what they ignore is up to them because this is their game and we have to deal with what they decide. If they think the ideas about cooloff timers discussed here are good, they will take them into consideration. If not, they will ignore it. They are the experts. Don't ever speak for them, or suggest you know what they think.

this game is pretty glitchy right now. Melee is just broken. Hypothetically (I don't often encounter people) a new spawn could kill someone better equipped than them because it would be unexpected)

Huge interiors have been suggested, large hospitals and sewers are my favorites. Ideally, the game would have larger buildings in cities rather than more ones of the same size you get in towns. So, for example, on top of lots of generic apartments, one really interesting unique apartment building with fixed zed spawns strewn throughout. The notes and recordings idea is interesting. Player left notes do exist, and can be created using paper and a pen. This part of the engine could be used for certain buildings. Ideas for interiors (stolen from zombie survival games): - hospital (creepy nurse and orderly zombies, lots of medical equipment) - military base (upgraded version of the current one, with a locked armory, offices, a basement etc.) - sewers (possibly a path between two cities. Zombies down here could wear maintenance worker clothes) - scientific research facility (lots of notes and recordings about the infection, zeds trapped in cages, broken cages from which zeds have escaped, zeds in lab coats :( , some medical equipment and maybe some kind of proto-type weapon designed to attack zeds (hypothetically an aerosol which attacks the infection, killing the zed?)) - castle (creepy long corridors, zeds who are dressed as maids, footmen and fancy clothing. Suits of armour and paintings galour, lots of rotten fine food and some canned food in the well-stocked kitchen) - leisure centre (lockers, mostly empty, with some useful equipment. Zeds in swimming clothes. Creepy rooms full of exercise equipment. Lots of water bottles and clothing) - university (lots and lots of books. Zeds dressed as professors (tweeds) or students (trendy clothing). Lots of clothing and food spread around halls, but with lots of zeds hiding around corners) - church (small buildings with little loot. One zed dressed as a Russian Orthodox priest) - abandoned hydroelectric dam (lots of water-filled rooms. Zeds dressed as maintenance workers. Possible source of clean water. Broken generator full of useful parts. Lots of tools) - Farm (more outdoors than indoors, but loot should match the area. Lots of hoes, pitchforks, and some tools in a tool shed. Broken tractors for parts, and possibly some wild berries (wild plants would quickly overgrow farms after an apocalypse because of the fertile soil) which could be harvested. Farmer zeds!) - Factory (lots of tools. Canned food factories would have canned food scattered around. Tool factories would have tools scattered around. Zeds dressed as factory workers) - Office building (zeds dressed as office workers, not much useful loot. Printers, fax machines etc. could be broken for parts) - Impromptu quarantine zone that was clearly overrun quite quickly after the outbreak (lots of soldier and civilian zeds. Lots of useful equipment (guns, ammo, backpacks) on soldiers and civilians, but there would have to be lots of zeds to deter all but the bravest of players) Phew! This is all I can think of

So on the survival time idea, where how long you have survived affects how long it takes to log back in: My version of that idea would be that it caps at one hour. If you have survived under 2 hours (fresh spawns) you respawn in 2 minutes. By the time you have survived 10 hours this would be 10 minutes. If you have survived 60 hours, then you have a one hour respawn time. Anything longer, and you come back in an hour. This would probably partially curb the actions of advanced military geared players from attacking fresh spawns, as they would have a lot more to lose if they died.

Great, so now fresh spawns have bulletproof water-backpacking bandits who can quick draw pistols to deal with! In all honesty, these items sound great, but they would have to be really rare. Really really rare.

nope. They need to be punished. And I need to be punished. We all have to be punished when we die. Otherwise the game is pointless. The whole point is suffering. If you think you are such a baddass that it won't affect you, then great! However for people who are actually telling the truth, sometimes death is pretty hard to avoid. Sometimes you get killed on sight. Sometimes a zombie attacks you and runs into the house you hide and it runs in through a wall while you are bandaging and you are bleeding again and you pull out your axe and... you're dead. It happens, and it is always your fault when it does (except when it isn't - alpha) so we should punish death to make it important. And it has to cover all servers. Because if you can just pop on down to another server, meet up with your buddy, and regear then it doesn't really matter that you died. A one hour minimum cooldown would teach us all a lot of lessons about the game, as negative reinforcement has been proven to be the best teacher. As for allowing it to continue on ''bloodbath servers'', should I really care what those idiots do? If they are having fun, then fine. It has no effect on me. They have funded the game's development, so give them all of the helicopters and cars and machine guns they want, as long as they can't transfer them to my 'grown-up' server for people who know what dayz is...

Exactly what I was thinking! beans.

Have to agree, server hopping is probably the biggest problem, needs fixing.

I would like to see the option to play as a child in DayZ... it would be an advanced challenge for experienced players, as children are more vulnerable to blood loss. However, children need less calories per day to survive, and so that could be an advantage, along with some other bonuses (maybe better climbing skills if that is ever introduced?). On top of this, child zombies would make for a dark twist...

these responses, though harsh, have been quite truthful. I hadn't really considered the effect it could have on the game's image. However, as always it is important to rule things out, so stop hating on me posting this in the first place...

this will literally half my survival time. I love it.

shame, but I have to agree with this. Cool idea for final release.

yes, but how about specific ideas for fortification. They may be planning fortifying buildings, but we can still brainstorm some ideas on how to make it good and what we want to see within the function (see my bookshelf idea).

The screen should go a cold blue as you dye from hypothermia. The stages of hypothermia are quite chilling (hah) to read, and should be implemented. Of course, being soaked should affect this, as heat will evaporate off of you no matter how cold you are. Also, the water makes your clothes into a better conductor of heat, meaning you lose more heat more quickly (ever noticed how a wet towel will burn you if you touch an oven, but a dry one won't?). Weather which makes this more or less likely has to be around the corner in beta (devs please!?) and obviously snow and cold rain will make death more likely. As for how to counter hypothermia, heat up quickly! Getting out of the cold into a warm space is important, but it is likely that the damage done to your cells will result in frostbite on your extremities. Unless this is treated effectively with painkillers and reheating, you will lose fingers/toes. If this were implemented, wearing high quality gloves and boots would be key, as they keep the extremities warm and dry.

You're right about the maps, they should be in Russian too. You're right, changing in to dry clothes (i.e. either clothes you were carrying in a waterproof container or clothes you just found indoors) should lower how wet you are, but your body would still be wet. So, changing into dry clothes would take you from soaking to damp realistically. However, it would be cool to be able to use a t-shirt to dry yourself off. As an idea on how to implement this, all items should have a soaked to dry indicator. No indicator on an item means it is completely dry, but the intensity of a blue colour indicator could tell you how wet it was. This would mean that different objects would get wet, and therefore effect how they work exactly, for example bandages won't work if they are soaked. If this were implemented though, some way of waterproofing bags would have to be implemented. For example, I line my expedition backpack with a black bin bag. This keeps everything safe, and if you are extra cautious, then smaller bags to keep things separate in case water gets in. As always, it would be cool to see the environment be a bigger threat, but in order to keep the game balanced, the devs need to add ways to counter the new dangers as they are added. So waterproof clothing which actually keeps you dry, or even an umbrella (sounds stupid, but why not?). The ability to put your hood up on a coat to protect from some of the rain might be useful.