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Toops

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Everything posted by Toops

  1. Toops

    Status Report - 08 Nov 2016

    Thanks for clarifying, much appreciated. TBH, I chose some slightly inflammatory words to draw out your opinions on progress and EA, so forgive me. To be fair, I probably under-estimated the team's progress on the new systems, and had some baked-in assumptions that there would be massive dev work needed to finish the feature backlog. The idea that all this dev work would happen in a relative vacuum, without iterative player feedback, and be delivered in a "big bang" integration sounded risky. But the truth is, your team has all my faith, and if you think this is a best way to go, I got your back.
  2. Since they're re-writing the Player Controller and animation systems from scratch, it's literally impossible to keep the melee system we have now functionally the same. Now, it could implement the same design, but at the least I would hope it "feels" better. If they re-design the melee combat system, well, things can always get worse, but I have a lot of faith in the talent of this team, so I assume it will be improved.
  3. Toops

    Status Report - 08 Nov 2016

    I asked this on reddit, but probably better to ask here: It seems like a very big departure from the spirit of early access to release all the remaining feature content in one giant splat called "beta." I wonder if a BI dev or CM could clarify what the plan is on iteratively releasing new content to the community. I'm assuming there will be many more minor versions beyond 0.62 before the official declaration of beta. Below is just a hypothetical, purely used to convey my point, but this seems entirely plausible, feel free to disagree (and tell me why): 0.63: New animation system, player controller, user actions, new sounds 0.64: Vehicle simulation/physics, new vehicles, new items, new weapons, new sounds, map improvements 0.65: Additional user actions, animations, PC/camera updates, helicopters, network sync improvements, new weapons/items 0.66: Base Building, electrical systems, character lifespan, soft skills 0.67: Environmental improvements, mod support, new weapons/items In my opinion, the devs could benefit greatly from stress testing things like helicopter/airplane desync, improved vehicle physics, increased player/infected/animal count, as well as give valuable feedback for new weapons, CLE changes, new areas (can't wait for the infected Tisy area), etc. I'd support the BI team either way, but if we're moving away from iterative changes, and you're planning to release all the remaining features in the backlog in one huge release, I'd like to hear that stated explicitly.
  4. Toops

    Why does this happen every single time?

    It's because there's absolutely 0 thought put into end game scenarios. It's why I stopped playing. If geared players weren't so bored, yet terrified of getting shot in the back of the head and losing everything they've worked for... If there was anything in-game that was worth risking your high-end gear for, this wouldn't happen every time. But as it stands, with high fear and no incentive to incur risk, it becomes a cycle of gearing up and losing it all while trying to figure out why the hell you geared up in the first place. I've heard the whole "anti-game" argument, and it's just not worth my time. I have many solutions to this end-game problem, but I won't share them here because I'm prototyping them in my own game.
  5. Toops

    What do you want to see in .54

    I totally agree with the desire, but performance tuning and optimization, especially graphics, is typically one of the last things done in the development life cycle. That's intentional. Iteration on the back-end can make optimizations irrelevant, so it makes sense to wait until they're closer to feature code complete. More specifically, Brian Hicks said in a recent interview that they've forked the DayZ engine, and the current engine is being phased out. Until the new engine is fully implemented and replaces the current production branch (we're probably talking months), optimizing the old engine and renderer is a waste of precious developer and artist resources.
  6. Look you're clearly passionate about this, and that's rad I'm all for that. But you're not gonna be convincing anyone with a gif and no substantive arguments. The fact that these suggestions come up all the time should tell you something... I think a lot of us are open-minded, and would be compelled by your point of view, so would you mind actually explaining why this would be so horrible? I'm not married to any ideas. I'm very new to this game, and I come with no biases or pre-occupations about what "real" DayZ is. I just know what I like, speak my mind, and enjoy hearing others do the same.
  7. Oh man that's a really good idea. I did some light brainstorming on the effects of sanity loss, but this is better than anything I came up with. Also, good point about being a tactical disadvantage.
  8. What do you think about characters having "sanity", and one of the best ways to replenish your sanity is to come within close proximity of other players? That would create a need for players to interact regularly, and could allow for more social diversity. Or, it could just make people more vulnerable to bandits. Thoughts?
  9. I think part of your premise is flawed. The first part is dead-on: cooperation should be much more valuable than just having a second gunner to watch your 6. The other part I disagree with: interacting with other players should be safer and more rewarding. I made a thread about a "parlay protocol", where once players get within a certain range of each other, they can hit a button and "opt-in" to a parlay/trade screen, eliminating the awkward, dangerous "Friendly/Drop your weapon" crap. But after a lot of replies disagreeing with my premise (meeting people in-game should be easier), I kind of changed my mind. Encountering other humans in a world where resources are scarce and survival is hard should be extremely dangerous. You just don't know what people are going to do. There is no ambiguity about how humans act when they are starving and desperate: They lie, steal, murder, even eat each other. The real problem imo lies in the interface. It should be easier to read people's intentions. In real life, we get so much more information through non-verbal communication, body language, and "vibes." The interface needs to somehow give us more insights into what this other player is about. I do like the idea of your in-game behavior somehow being reflected visibly in your character. Having some database where you have to alt-tab to read about players and give reviews, that's just not going to work, it either won't be used at all, or won't be accurate enough to be informative.
  10. Premise: If you've ever shot a gun, you know that feeling of aiming right at a target, pulling the trigger, missing, and you're like, WHAT? I was aiming RIGHT AT IT! Summary: Once you find a decent gun, it's too easy to hit your target. I propose a soft-skill system that, with time and practice, allows your character to get better at hitting your target with a firearm. Purpose: Soft-skill leveling systems will add replay value through continued progression. It will add long-term investment in your character, and create interesting survival trade-offs. Synopsis: In reality, hitting a static object with a gun is physically difficult, and takes a lot of practice. Hitting a moving, living target is extremely difficult, and takes years of training to be effective under pressure. Most survivors are civilians. They would generally be unskilled with firearms, and would have trouble hitting static, non-living targets. Also, humans get really nervous when looking at human-sized animals with intent to kill. There's an uncontrollable physiological reaction to aiming at a large living thing and then mentally committing to ending its life. I can only imagine how scary it would be to shoot a zombie, knowing you're giving away your position. Adrenaline reduces accuracy, but training minimizes the effects. The following elements/subsystems are just suggestions, mainly to stimulate conversation. There would be primary attributes : -trajectoryRadius: the potential deviation from your intended target at 100 yards. -gunSwayRadius: how far is the gun traveling when aimed down sights -gunSwayRate: how fast the gun is traveling along the gunSwayRadius The main attributes that you can improve, and ultimately reduce trajectoryRadius would be: -baseAccuracy: ignoring all other factors, what is my trajectoryRadius? -animalComposure: how accurate am I when shooting at animals? affects trajectoryRadius and gunSwayRate -humanComposure: how accurate am I when shooting at humans? affects trajectoryRadius and gunSwayRate -zombieComposure: how accurate am I when shooting at zeds? affects trajectoryRadius and gunSwayRate -adrenalineComposure: are you aiming at a human-sized animal? are you being shot at? have you been spotted by a zombie? affects gunSwayRadius Every time you aim at a target and shoot, you improve baseAccuracy. That means shooting at anything from trees to humans to static targets in the wilderness. But be careful you don't give up your location while improving your skills! Every time you aim and fire at the given targetType, you improve that composureType Every time you are in a high-risk situation (shooting at person, being shot at, chased by zombie, etc), you improve your adrenalineComposure An attribute that you cannot improve, that would increase trajectoryRadius would be -healthFactor: are you sick? wounded? etc Example1: Fresh Spawn baseAccuracy: 36 inches animalComposure: 0 humanComposure: 0 zombieComposure: 0 adrenalineComposure: 0 I'm not very good with guns, my base trajectoryRadius (with no improvement) is 36 inches at 100 yards. As I shoot firearms more and more, my trajectoryRadius would approach an expert 1 inch. Example2: Survivalist As a veteran survivalist, I shoot a lot of animals, which has given me: baseAccuracy: 5 inches animalComposure: 25 humanComposure: 2 zombieComposure: 3 adrenalineComposure: 4 Situation: Wouldn't you know it, the first time I enter a town in days and I'm taking fire from another person! I have a harder time hitting that person than I do a deer, because my humanComposure is very low, and adrenalineComposure is not as high as a bandit or sniper. But I'm still much more effective than a fresh spawn. In this situation, my trajectoryRadius is 14 inches at 100 yards. Example3: Bandit I hang out on the coast outside of towns and shoot fresh spawns. baseAccuracy: 6 inches animalComposure: 0 humanComposure: 14 zombieComposure: 6 adrenalineComposure: 29 Situation: I'm taking fire from a sniper. I flank him but now I have a zombie on my 6 and I'm breathing hard. I aim down at the sniper 100 yards out. My humanComposure is really good so I'm not worried about taking this tango down, my trajectoryRadius is 7 inches. Next, I aim down at the zombie. My trajectoryRadius is 12 inches at 100 yards cause I'm freaking out. Other musings: -More general gun sway when aiming down sights: Novices don't know how to hold or balance a weapon, and their hands typically get uncontrollably shaky once they mentally commit to firing the weapon. -Firing from the hip: It's clownshoes, and should miss like 90% of the time, like it does in real life. -Gun drawRate: the better you are with guns, the faster you can draw it up to your sights -Gun reloadRate: the more you use that kind of gun, the faster you can reload it -Guns jam constantly: Make jams very common (they are irl). The frequency with which you have to clean your weapon so it doesn't jam takes OCD-like dedication. Make weapon cleaning kits very rare, so it's very likely to have to work through a jam in a firefight.
  11. Toops

    Fire Weapons

    Um... HELL YES.
  12. Toops

    Weapons Expertise Skill System

    That's true too. I don't expect the devs to have this done anytime soon. The reason I make posts like this is because I want to influence Bohemia's design decisions. That's why I opted-in to early access.. so I can help in my small way to make this a better game. In that way, I appreciate it when people disagree with me, because although I really want light skill systems, I don't want to lobby for a game the majority of the community would not like. But it seems to me (from this admittedly tiny sample size) that people are pretty divided on the topic of skill systems. When people are divided on an idea, I find the best course of action is to mock it up, try it out, and get feedback. Best-case, Bohemia will try out different mechanics and features, release them to us, and really listen to our feedback. If our feedback is positive, they keep that feature. If it's not, they iterate on it, replace it, or just scrap it.
  13. Toops

    Weapons Expertise Skill System

    Now that's totally fair, I also want brutal survival. That's how this idea came up, is I was riffing on how easy it is to hit people from 300 yards right now, or 100 yards with iron sights. It's leading to gameplay that resembles neither brutality nor survival. Even if they don't introduce a soft-skill system for weapons use, I really hope they make it harder to hit your target in general.
  14. Toops

    Identifying security weaknesses

    Also something to remember, writing good code takes time. Hacking fixes together is fast, but ultimately doesn't fix anything. Just trades one set of problems for a new set. I once had to make all the public forms on a web app free from XSS and SQL injection, which is pretty easy... in theory. But this company's implementation of Spring Security was written by a company they had acquired, and it was so shit-house, it took a major re-write and tons of testing, but they didn't have any test automation so I had to write that, then more re-writes, more testing, etc. Sometimes when problems arise in software, you are presented with a choice: "quick and dirty", or "the right way". I don't blame you for suggesting this, it's an honest and good suggestion. But it seems to me like Bohemia is choosing "the right way", given how much time they are allocating to security framework and battle-eye re-writes.
  15. Toops

    Weapons Expertise Skill System

    It's not a silly idea. Your immature reduction of my complex idea into a silly idea sounds silly, I'll give you that. I get it, you want 24-hour ezmode, but if that's what Bohemia delivers, I'm disappoint.
  16. Toops

    Weapons Expertise Skill System

    Dude I hate grinding too, that's the last thing I want. But I do want to feel like there's an incentive to survive. I think a lot of poorly designed/executed/balanced games half-assedly pull in rpg-style features just to get people cheaply addicted to the game. That sucks, and I agree. The perils of cheaply designed stats and skill trees that require min/maxing are real. But let's not throw the baby out with the bath-water here. If Bohemia implements a skill system, your "maximum" gains just absolutely must not be that much better than base-level. IMO it should always be hard to hit a living target at more than 50 yards. Otherwise the game is out of balance by design, and now everyone is required to powerlevel their character else be a gimp. That's garbage, nobody wants that. One solution: Make your skill improvements purely time-based. So the longer you stay alive the higher your accuracy and poise under pressure. Doesn't matter how much you use the skill. That way, it's 100% impossible to powerlevel. And again, just to reiterate, even if you're alive for a year, your accuracy should not be that much better than a fresh spawn. But it should be noticeably better. The alternative is skill-use-based progression, which I fully support. In any case, over time, you should just get a sense that you're hitting targets slightly more often, or that your gun is not moving around or jamming quite as much as it used to. After two weeks of playing a char, you might realize quite out of the blue, hey! I aim down my mosin faster than I used to! As another balancing element, you could make every skill have an equally bad trade-off. Here are some examples: -the better you are at shooting animals, the worse you are at shooting people -the higher your killing aptitude, the worse you are at growing food and cooking -the more calm you are under fire (better adrenalineComposure), the faster your sanity depletes when you're not in combat (assuming they implement a sanity system, which is a HUGE assumption) Anyway, you get the idea. I have some other examples of skill trade-offs in the fitness thread. Like the more you jog, the better you get at jogging.. BUT the lower your body fat and higher your metabolism, so you starve faster and get cold faster. Ultimately what I want is replayability, and for me that comes through progression. But the only kind of progression that captivates me is a balanced system of trade-offs, where every choice you make both gives you something, and takes something away.
  17. Summary: The longer your character stays alive and exercises their body in various ways, the stronger, faster, and more effective your body becomes. Purpose: Incentive to keep your character alive, psychological investment in your char's progression, limiting sprinting exploit (making vehicles more useful), create interesting survival trade-offs. This feature has a lot of different attributes which inter-relate. I'm going to give it a start, and leave the rest to the imagination of readers and devs. I'm a programmer myself, so I threw out a little bit of pseudo-code, because honestly, that's how I conceive of things :) Detailed Synopsis There are three main fitness types: -aerobic (jogging) -anaerobic (sprinting) -muscular (carrying/lifting) Every character has unique base attributes which cannot change (configurable when designing your char at startup?): -baseAerobicFitness -baseAnaerobicFitness -baseMuscularFitness As you move around in the world, you're constantly getting better at that type of movement. Specifically, you increase that fitness type's modifier, which in turn, effects that fitness type's attributes Aerobic Fitness -improves your aerobicModifier, which: -increases your jogStamina -increases your jogSpeed -increases your jogRecoveryRate -increases your walkSpeed -reduces the amount of calories burned by general movement of all types -recoveryFoodType: fats Anaerobic Fitness -improves your anaerobicModifier, which: -increases your sprintStamina (how long you can sprint) -increases your sprintSpeed (how fast you sprint) -increases your sprintRecoveryRate (how fast you recover sprintStamina) -increases your crawlSpeed -increases your crouchSpeed -recoveryFoodType: carbohydrates Muscular Fitness -improves your muscularModifier, which: -increases meleeAttackDamage -increases maxCarryWeight -increases maxWeightWithNoSpeedReduction (carry more stuff without being slowed down at all) -reduces tooMuchWeightModifier (not slowed down as much when above maxWeightWithNoSpeedReduction) -things that improve muscular fitness: --carrying items --climbing --crouching --crawling -recoveryFoodType: protein (meats, eggs?, protein bar?) Mechanics: Sprinting -depletes your "anaerobic stamina" bar (sprintStamina) -the more you sprint, the more you increase sprintModifier, which makes you better at sprinting -When you run out of sprintStamina, you are now "recovering" -all movement speeds are penalized while recovering by a recoveryModifier. if you're jogging, it would be (jogSpeed * recoveryModifier) -Anaerobic output burns primarily carbohydrates (replaced by beans, rice, sugary stuff, etc) -You can also improve how quickly your sprint bar recovers (sprintRecoveryRate) Jogging -Jogging depletes your "aerobic stamina" bar (jogStamina) -The more you jog, the more you increase aerobicModifier, which makes you better at aerobic activities -The better your aerobic fitness, the less calories you burn while moving -Aerobic output burns fats (replaced by fatty meats, cheese, butter, lard, etc) Muscular/Carrying/Lifting -The more stuff you carry, the more you increase muscularModifier, which makes you stronger and less encumbered by carrying items Resources: There are certain global restrictors. Also, each of the three movement types have their own sub-resource system, based on nutrient type. Once you are in deficit of a nutrient type, you reduce the corresponding fitness type modifier until you eat food of that type. -tired - all systems reduced until you stop moving or walk for a while -needElectrolytes - all systems reduces until you eat fruit or foods rich in potassium, calcium, sodium, or take electrolyte pills, or gatorade-like sports drink. -needProtein - muscularModifier reduced until you eat protein -needCarbohydrates - anaerobicModifier reduced until you eat carbs -needFat - aerobicModifier reduced You can incorporate weight-based concepts (penalties for carrying a lot of items): -baseWeight: how much your character weighs with no clothes or gear on -baseCarryWeight: the combined weight of all your items, etc. -effectiveCarryWeight: (baseCarryWeight * muscularModifier) -the higher your effectiveCarryWeight, the faster your maximum movement speeds are There is also the concept of bodyFat, and metabolicRate: -high fitness means low bodyFat and high metabolism -the more fit you are, the faster you get hungry (high metabolicRate) -the more fit you are, the faster you get cold (not as much fat to keep you warm)
  18. I'm not a fan of hardcore RPG breakpoint min/max elements, that's not what I'm talking about. But what you just described is the most realistic fact in life: Whatever you practice, you get better at. That's all I want. If I do something in the game, I want to get better at that thing. There are plenty of ways to prevent people from "powerleveling" something. Knees get injured if you jog too much. That's hella realistic. I used to be an endurance athlete, I know all about overuse injuries. Dislocate your shoulder if you do too much target practice. etc.
  19. Toops

    Weapons Expertise Skill System

    Now of all the viewpoints opposing character progression, this one makes the most sense to me. I would not go so far as to call it "RPG elements." I'm not talking about a character sheet with STR/DEX/VIT and all that crap. Make no mistake, characters in DayZ already have those concepts associated to them. I just don't think this game will have any longevity as a survival game without a reason for your character to survive, and a system that rewards you for doing so. Like I said in a previous post, the last thing I want is game-changing systems that can be min-maxed. I don't want anyone to actually have to think about character design, "build types" or anything like that. none of these attributes would even be visible to you through a character screen. I want to avoid RPG breakpoints and cookie-cutter build stuff just as much as the next guy. I totally get that. But if I jog everywhere, I think it's completely reasonable that over time, my character will be able to jog faster, for longer amounts of time before my feet and leg muscles get tired. If I am constantly fighting zombies in close quarters, I should get marginally better at hitting them in the head with my melee weapon. The key here is marginal gains. Again, nothing that's gonna make people fire up their own server so they can "max" their skills. Most of the people against the idea seem to have some axe to grind with traditional game design elements, which is kind of punk rock and awesome.. But I've yet to hear an argument against lightweight progression elements that compels me to change my mind. I'm very open to being convinced, though!
  20. Toops

    Weapons Expertise Skill System

    Hey thanks man. Look I totally agree that cooking/medical/foraging should have their own LIGHTWEIGHT skill systems too (lightweight guys, nothing crazy). Paradoxically, having systems like this will allow for many different playstyles, and free up the game, unless they really botch it. However you like to play, just play like that, and your character will modestly improve in those areas. I just don't see how this game will have any longevity unless there is some reward for actually surviving. This is just my opinion, but if it's just a sandbox lootfest + pvpfest like it is now, where the clans just server-hop and gank all the top-tier loot, with no way to stay engaged with a character, and no real reason to preserve your own life once adequately geared, this game will be the biggest disappointment since Diablo 3. Every single game developer needs to learn from how hard Diablo 3 failed: Blizzard misunderstood the psychology of loot grinding completely. For most people, there has to be a constant stream of small upgrades, with the potential of low-probability big upgrades, to stay engaged with a game like this. Once you get the stuff you want, without some kind of character building mechanics, you will disassociate from that character, go all Rambo and, ultimately, die. If that's what everyone wants, that's totally fine. But that's definitely not what I want.
  21. Toops

    Weird Growling..

    I totally agree, I'm not worried. The main reason it annoys me is because good audio has a profound effect on immersion. I'm stoked to see what they deliver.
  22. Toops

    Weird Growling..

    There's also just flat-out audio bugs galore. Now, rant incoming, because I'm extremely offended by bad audio/sound design. I usually stay out in the woods far away from zombies and people. I hear zombie growling noises constantly, panned stereo center like it's right on top of me but nope! Not a zombie within 3 square km. More accurately, I just hear zombie NOISE because it's the same crappy sample over. and over. and over again. Between that, and the annoying chain link fence / gate sound that comes outta nowhere, I barely even listen anymore. It offends my ears that much. These two really poor-quality, dry sound effects, with zero echo-location anywhere in the game-space just pollute my senses. It doesn't reflect the environment, or being stalked; it's not at all ambient, or tied to anything in particular, which makes it annoying, not creepy. I'm still clearly alerted to the presence of actual zombies in my area, because it's not that god-awful dry grunt sample.
  23. There seems to be a pretty strong "sandbox" and/or "anti-game" culture around DayZ. Would you care to elaborate on what you're not fond of? (Trying my best to avoid a semantic debate) I don't want an RPG either. I do, however, want to see my character progress over time. I want the choices I make to have some effect on me outside of just gathering items that suit my play style.
  24. I think this is one of the most important areas for Bohemia to correct. Survivors should be much, much worse at handling firearms. See my above post where I spell out the detail, but in short, they should make our shots sometimes miss even when we seem to be aimed right at our targets. They should make our hands shake really bad when we're aiming at a human being, or worse, a zombie, because when you're scared AND about to kill a living thing that's similar to you in size, fear and adrenaline goes racing through you, and all but the most highly trained combat professionals know how to maintain composure and remain accurate. This would add a character building and skill elements (i.e. incentive to stay alive and keep playing). The more you use guys, the better your accuracy gets, the less often you miss when aiming correctly. The more human-size animals you kill, the steadier your hand when aiming down sights. The more zombies you kill, the more steady your hand when aiming at zombies. etc. Heck, I'm gonna add this as a new suggestion topic.
  25. I totally agree. I've been a software engineer for a long time, and one of the biggest traps for a development shop is to assume they know what their customers want without ever asking. Bohemia clearly wants our expectations to help guide their requirements. It's our responsibility to communicate our expectations early and often. If we all communicate clearly and effectively, we can, and will have an impact on the design decisions for DayZ. That's why I love being a part of alpha. It's important to remember: We are testers! I started my career writing test automation, and the hardest part isn't the testing.. it's communicating the test results in a way that brings users closer to developers. In my opinion, what we now call "Early Adoption/Alpha" is based on a concept called User Acceptance Testing. The idea is simple: distribute your incomplete software out to customers as soon as possible to make sure your internal requirements are matching their product expectations. It's our role as early adopters to close the feedback loop, and give constructive, actionable feedback so that Bohemia can be confident they're building the DayZ that we actually want.
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