Kirov (DayZ)

Ahh, and now we’re getting to the ‘hypocrisy’ part I mentioned earlier. It’s a sandbox and anyone can do whatever they want, right? But my gameplay is stupid and boring when I just wanna check out the new villages in the West, or hang out in my old hunting grounds, or get a car working? (you’re knocking with that loot/die/repeat routine on a very wrong door). I can have all the fun I want, provided it conforms to your definition of ‘fun’ and I’m supposed to happily drop everything if met by two guys who want to have a different kind of ‘fun’? So the old saying ‘you can wave your hands all you want until they land on someone’s face’ gets changed into ‘you can wave your hands all you want until someone’s fist lands on your face’, ammirite? Look, I know these conversations and I know you won’t say ‘well, now that you put it this way...’ or something. Instead, I expect doubling down with some faux-tough line about growing a pair and Dayz being Dayz. But genuinely please, do it for me and think about the above reasoning (or talk about it with a friend) for just 10 minutes over the next year. 10 minutes by June 2020, that’s all I’m asking.

I’m so sad to read it, man. I remember you well from your beginnings and extensive writing in the How Was Your Day(Z) topic. You were shocked and appalled by Berezino freshies being needlessly aggressive and if there ever was a player without ‘that Y chromosome’ (what??), it was most definitely you, for a long time, and you were not ashamed of it. I considered you one of the most mature players around here and I remember I wanted to meet you and your kid (?), Zombie Hunter (US ping didn’t allow me then). I have recently clocked 2000 hours in DayZ and I behave to others more or less the same when I started, i.e. I never pull the trigger first and I carry a can of Pepsie as a gift to other friendlies. And reading this topic, I’m actually kinda proud of that. Maybe, just maybe, the real toughness is „standing the pressure of a hostile enviroment” and not as this community thinks, „enjoying the receiving part of make-believe torture” (do you guys even hear yourselves?). But eno, please don’t feel insulted, I just wanted to say I’m sad to see that you Anakin’d your way through DayZ. But well, that’s what this apocalypse does to people. You’d make an interesting Walking Dead character. Have my beans for all the good reading I had.

I share the feeling, but I think the survival part never worked as advertised on the box and it was always a bit dismaying at the end. Like, at some moment there's really just not that much to do and then I quit. I had my fingers crossed for 1.04 being survival-oriented... well, next time I guess. Or after the next. And I strongly agree that DayZ has been quite a poor PVP game, especially before stamina. When I want to shoot, I just play Insurgency. Fewer bugs, no clipping and you get into action right away. Now that I think about it, PVE could be split into 2 sub-categories - one is how many survivalist elements are in game (crafting, animals, etc.), another is how hard actually is the 'VERSUS environment' part. And yeah, the second part is largely non-existent. You could decide to eat pears only and still be quite well off.

The fact that there's not even some simplest placeholder mechanics (like you described) for stuff like that has always worried me about design choices. Like, how hard is to come up with something simple which would make a big element of the game 30% more interesting? Rice cooking is another thing that comes to mind. But yeah, with all those the clothing items lying around, basically I always go for the spaciest dark ones and just stick to them. I understand that people wanted variety, but whenever I find a dress or sneakers or a pink balaclava, something in me just sighs in resignation. Doing something about the clothing would be very much in place, indeed. Damage affecting slot capacity/integrity is a good idea. I think we do have some other minor effects, like ruined raincoat does not protect against the rain, but who cares really. Ruined backpacks for example also fulfill their intended role.

Don't worry, there is nothing wrong in feeling actual human emotions in reaction to make-believe stimuli. One might even say it's the entire point of make-believe. The moment I don't care what happens to my toon is the moment I know it's time to stop playing.

This was actually the kind of thing that held me back from joining DayZ at first. I'm rather busy and when I finally find some time to play a videogame, getting tortured is not exactly my definition of "fun". And I must say, I've always found that old and tried "but I like torturing people, stop preventing me from having fun" argument as ridiculously stupid. Not only it's blatantly hypocritical - literally the only thing those people do is ruin someone else's fun - but it also proves that your grumpy grampa is right, video games do kill imagination. But partially I have always blamed it on the devs' decisions - by launching an EA with barely just guns in it, they nurtured a base of players who simply don't see what else they could possibly do. It bit the devs' asses back every time they introduced a new survival element like wetness and temperature. And I'm afraid it's gonna stay like that for some time. Try suggesting on this board that ammo spawns should be cut, and see what happens then. Fortunately, for the most part of the development process you were able to outrun most players who wanted to hold you up. Pistols, shotties, Mosins - you could outstrafe them all. This meant two things for me - 1) DayZ PvP is ridiculous, 2) it's quite easy to avoid it altogether. I was held up (and told to undress) a couple of times, likely for some ensuing "fun". But then I just pretended to fumble with my INV screen and made a dash for it. Most of the times I could make it. If I couldn't, well I still felt it's better to start anew. And it's been a long time since I was assaulted like that. Partially, it is better awareness - I tend to see other players before they see me (well, at least when I don't see someone who's watching me unaware, then he doesn't get an easy drop). Another idea is to choose your servers. I don't really like those no-PvP servers - I want to have some considerable threat level, I don't want everyone to be a carebear around me. But more mature players tend to go to 1PP servers, those with nights, no crosshair, survival mods, etc. I like it when there are no rules, but the very gameplay is tweaked to prevent sniper camping or pointless freshie killing. And you can always go for super-friendly servers with active admins, no PvP or base raiding. I have one like that when I just want to chill. But yeah, every now and then you will run into a bored player. Watch his hands and take care there.

It's the nature of the advantage, not the existence of it. Nobody said here that all players in all situations should have equal playing field like in a boxing ring. It's strawman to suggest that. Scopes works like better guns or gear - they give advantage, of course, but it's not shooting fish in a barrel. You still have to use your wits and you can be outsmarted. You don't have 'better sight' - you just have a scope, you need to bring it up to the eye to use it. Which has its situational drawbacks. On the other hand, NVG negates the entire 'playing nighttime' thing. Right now night is balanced in the sense that all people need to rely on light sources, so your lamp is seen but you can see other lamps, too. And here, players can choose from among a bunch of tactical choices - torches illuminate a lot but also betray your position most, headtorches are stealthier but help less, etc. All of this goes down the drain if you can clearly see everything without emitting any light yourself and without holding anything in hands. So you use that scope to get a drop on people who run around with torches in their hands. This is a kind of advantage that hackers enjoy. It's like having a jetpack or a power armor or a see-through walls capability. It affects the core mechanics around which human encounters revolve. Hell, if NVGs are in, I want to get advanced DARPA projects like cloaking devices or liquid armor exoskeletons. They're gonna be commonplace anyway before DayZ hits 1.0.

Amen. Bows not goggles!

And how would you know he's there in the first place? Assuming he camps and snipes and changes position? He's still the Predator in all contexts you can think of. And there was only one Dutch.

That's like introducing the option to kill everyone on the server with ICBMs or napalm airstrike, but then say you can do it only once per month, and on a Wednesday. It's a band-aid for a needlessly self-inflicted wound. I have no doubt that NV will discourage players from nighttime even more. People will use NV mainly for two things: effortlessly picking off other helpless players, and preventing those players from getting their own NV. Which means you go to NV spawns only to find death from those who have essentially a hacking-tool advantage. Of course, you could go there at day, but why bother if you can forget it all and simply stick to daytime servers? If it drives me away from the night, which I love, what would be the reaction of more casual players?

I really didn't expect the 'our game should suck like the real world' argument from you, IMT. One thing is striving for the feeling of authenticity, quite another is bringing stuff into game without thinking how it affects gameplay and player behaviour. It's like with clothing and shoe sizes. The devs decided against introducing them, because that would be unnecessary, time-consuming, silly and/or boring. 'One size fits all' has nothing to do with realism, all to do with the fact that it's a game and at some point you just need to stop trying to mimic the real world, because otherwise there would be no reason to play video games. We've got ICBMs in the real world, would you like them in DayZ? One payload destroys most of the server, kills most/all players on it and makes it unplayable by 2050. Come on, just one warhead per server! Still not convinced? Look at your arguments against ICBMs and see how they have nothing to do with 'realism'.

Finally someone who sees the damage done by NV to balanced night gameplay. I seriously thought I'm the only one. I agree with all you said. You do know we will be completely ignored, do you? The devs are definitely not above making this bad call.

I saw that post. So spambots can necropost threads in a vague not-quite-human-but-I-can't-put-my-finger-on-it manner? Geez. And yeah, I completely forgot about chainsaws. They were kinda fun against zeds and orchards alike. Will we see them again?

It was on Reddit a couple of months ago, but I can't recall any official info. I'm 99% sure it was one of those many 'you have to find out for yourself, the hard way'. Did you at least survive leaving the map? I barely escaped with my life when I tried that.

Metalhead, you jester. The gas stove never needed matches. 😉

OK, now I'm legitimately curious. Can you provide the name (or type) of the server(s) that you play on? I'd like to check their loot distribution by myself. I promise to be as fair and impartial as possible, no snide or condescending remarks, etc. I just really want to know why our experience differs so much.

So eating raw meat still doesn't lead to sickness? Just great. Regarding your question: for 'stealth' reasons, it's best (and quickest) if you can find a stove, a gas bottle and a cooking pod. In this manner, you can cook anywhere and quite fast. To save gas, try to cook as much as you can in one batch (the pot takes time to heat up). With a camp fire, I can say you indeed seem to worry too much. 😉 I make campfires often and never get shot at (on low-to-medium-pop servers, I hate it when I have to wait in queue). Just remember to go to the woods, even half a kilometre away from Berezino would be more than enough. And of course, I wouldn't be that relaxed in the forests around Tisy. But in other parts of the Western and Northern wilderness stretches? You're fine. And if you take time to get 8 stones to create an oven, it's even safer as it radiates much less light. Secluded houses with kitchen stoves also work quite well and you can close the doors around you with lockpicks if that helps you relax.

😄 We really could have a conversation about the importance of food gathering and processing and how much of the player's time it should take, considering various goals which the player can strive for (from "barely not starving" to "well-fed to the point where it should increase stamina and other stats"). But if you have trouble understanding why this survival game should be about survival if there are so many other survival games, I guess we won't have that conversation, after all. And you hear it for the 5th time - if it takes that much effort for you just to barely stay alive, you're doing it wrong. Find a shovel, tell it "I'm sorry I ignored you so long" and use it properly to your advantage. That human metabolism runs much faster in this game has a flip side - everything works like that, from fracture healing to plant growing. Find a shovel and some seeds, use them together, reap the harvest within 10 minutes (the devs shortened it right now). You hate farming and find it boring - fine. Every second tree in a town drops a pear, find a tree and eat a fruit, how hard that can be?

I'm not saying that it's easy to live solely off of fruit and mushrooms (with all that running from tree to tree), but it's definitely doable. I think those two sources of food were removed altogether from DUG servers for exactly that reason. Add an occasional chicken (a kind of food which actively tries to attract you from a distance) and your belly is full in no time.

Despite all issues, I find cars very useful, I'd even say they're at their best since introduction. But still very much WIP, of course. To go around the "hard time with the door" mentioned by the OP, I simply remove the driver's door - and the trunk, for that matter. It got really bad to find the "clickable area" and although it's true for many things, it's most annoying with cars. But I'm getting better and better at taking out spark plugs by hand and soon I'll be spending less than a minute on it...

I agree, although I'm in two minds about this high enthropy of Chernarus. On the one hand, a considerable portion of my precious precious time is checking and repairing my clothes after each PvZ, and I agree that this is a chore rather than a challenge. On the other - I've noticed a long time ago that people only complain about disadvantages of the overall time acceleration (like how fast you eat through axes, can openers and silencers) and never about the goodies (like fast healing, farming or running). I guess I would support slower item degradation but only if the devs removed morphine and splint, to which I've always referred to as Potions of Limb Restoration, because they are exactly that - magic items.

I'm not an expert in racing games, but I tried some titles. As far as I remember, S is used to slow down and then to reverse, like no element of anything in the world. DayZ is the only game I know where you put the reverse on and use W to go backwards. And I'm really loving it. I remember all the car models in DayZ on the Polish streets back in the day and I would just hate it to see a Volga with automatic transmission. There are probably more games where you use W/reverse to go backwards, I just don't know them. I agree that our main problem nowadays is lag, but there's still helluva room for improvement in car mechanics.

Hm, interesting. I played mainly Exile, I don't know if it has anything to do with that. Various servers, maps and mods (within that modpack, ofc). The entire physics and mechanics, either the reverse or going through forests, felt like something I vaguely remember from the 90s. If my toon ate a magic mushroom and suddenly got bigger but also faster, that would be more or less that kind of experience. Maybe I'm getting it wrong, maybe it's different solutions for Exile. I don't remember that much (and I don't care that much) about cars in other games, but I do remember being far from impressed, from NFS to Arma 3 alike. I played KOTH some, but largely on foot. 😉 And yes, gears and RPM work abysmally in DayZ at the moment. I do all forest roads on 1, all hard roads on 2, on long straight stretches I use 3. Gear 4 is useless even if I step on the pedal at the NWAF. RPM works poorly and unauthentically. It's really early stages of WIP (I believe we're still in alpha, not beta). My only point was - at least it's something. It's kinda like with bicycles in Exile, where I feel like a circus bear on a trike and a part of me chuckles most of the time. I miss bikes in DayZ, but not like this. I'd rather wait, even years not months.

This is one thing I would strongly defend the devs on. I'd rather have mechanics which strives for 'authenticity' and remains long overdue WIP than drive smoothly like in Arma 3, where vehicles have that distinct feel of Need For Speed from 20 years ago. What I mean first and foremost is, obviously, how the 'S' key works first like a brake and then like the rear gear. What is this? And the whole engine RPM shtick works badly at the moment, but at least it's there. All that Arma 3 shows is how easy it is to implement vehicle driving from 1995 - and why we shouldn't do that. And yeah, currently the cars drive poorly. My solution is to maintain slow-to-average speed - around 50 kmh in cities, at sharp turns, etc. 70-80 kmh at smoother patches, 90-100 on really nice long stretches of road. The cars are actually very sturdy and you shouldn't destroy any car parts even if you hit at a wall at <50kmh. Your mileage may vary with this. Having said, just yesterday I totaled a car at the Chernogorsk blockade after a crash to desktop. It never hurts to ask active admins for help/compensation on community servers.

So it wasn't the usual 'we're working on the new engine' story? One of my beloved features was deleted because DayZ players are a bunch of immature shitheads? FFS, people. Sometimes it strikes me how little I share with 'the average DayZ player'. But then again, maybe that's what makes Chernarus a good story. Anyway, cutting the notes is like banning cars to curb drunk driving. If DayZ was at any moment close to what it says on the box (I mean the 'gritty survival' part), the problem would have never been there in the first place. I bet diamonds against nuts that stupid notes just won't happen on survival-heavy servers.