My first post here, though I've been reading since I bought 'DayZ' in October, and I'm afraid I have to chime in with the negatives on .55, unfotunately. I know we're still "early doors" on the game and the development team are in the middle of work still, but .55 just has too many things wrong with it to get a thumbs up. There are good things in the mix, but over all .55 has been a pretty lack luster affair for me over the Easter holidays. The infected: I think that it's good that they are making the infected tougher, but they are tougher through more glitching and not through good design. Take a look over your shoulder when running away from them. It's laughable. It's great that the player has to be wary of them, but it's terrible that they can teleport silently to the player and get in their blows without the player having a clue as to what's happening. My last character died from a rubber-banding female zombie that killed me with a single blow, even though I had a "pristine" motorcycle helmet on my head. Having the ability to skirt around them is an excellent addition, in fact it's the single most rewarding thing about .55. But, they are at the moment too dumb. If you're careful, you never have to deal with them at all, which is probably worse than the situation in previous itterations of the game. The player really has to run into them for them to notice and they have to be relatively near to hear gunfire if you shoot. In short, they need A LOT of work still and now is not the time to be making them into what they presently are. Loot: The messing around with loot has been pretty much a disaster, in my opinion. There was perhaps too much easy loot in previous updates (especially with regards to military hardware), but now the situation is awful. There is a happy medium to be found, no doubt. But the team have certainly not found it yet. It seems that too many places are picked clean and they stay picked clean, which is terribly frustrating for a new spawn and even a character that's survived for weeks. "Moving inland" is not really the solution either. The present game mechanic means that a new spawned character is far more likely to simply die of starvation/thirst, as buildings are devoid of any useful objects. A few goes at this and people will just log off. That simply isn't a fun experience and if there's one way to put off new players, that's it. If this is the new direction that 'DayZ' is going to take then, at the very least, spawn players with a full stomach and something useful, like a knife. The military areas of the map are now almost completely useless and while the previous situation was a bit too handy to pick up AK's etc at Vybor, the current situation means that those facilities might as well not be there at all. Going into the prison island isn't even worth the swim now. If there's no point in going there (ie to pick up a decent weapon), the devs might as well just not bother building new areas like that. Worse still are the loot placements. Gingham dresses in Quonset huts? wha? TTsKO tunics in a barn in the middle of nowhere? Hmmm. Something's not right there. Plus, things that should be relatively easy to find in domestic areas (even in an apocalypse), like matches, pots, kitchen knives, etc, are virtually impossible now. I know the dev team are eager to eliminate the "Call of Cherno"/KoS malaise that has gripped the game and making high grade military weapons harder to get hold of might just go someway to doing that, but it also penalises the players that want to "Walter Mitty" their way through Chernarus's end of days. Let's be honest, a decent weapon is an absolute must for survival in the world of 'DayZ', whether it's for the (super) infected or other players that mean you harm. In addition, if the minimising/elimination of weapons loot is the dev teams's answer to KoS (in the hope that strangers will co-operate), then they are sorely mistaken. When in the past, some players KoS'd because that's all they could think of doing with their playtime, now they have a legitimate reason to simply kill other players, as they will want what the other players have, be that a shiny new M4 or a can of Heinz beans. You will NEVER fully eliminate KoS, because some people are limited to this type of play. But, making it harder for other players to combat that in game, is just penalising players who don't KoS. Sure, it's annoying as hell, but other types of players need those AKM's as well, especially now as the infected are immune to fire axes in the head. 'DayZ' needs loot, it's a central (if not THE) mechanic of the game and the current situation is just awful, despite the (hasty) welcome it has recieved by some. It also needs loot to be distrubuted in logical places. If I need to hunt down a cooking pot for my chicken, then I need to hit a town. If I need an MP5 with a supressor, then I'll have to trek down to an army barracks. It may be a fruitless trip, or it may not. The current situation, however, almost guarantees that it'll be a waste of the players time. Anyway, sorry for the negative first post. I haven't been prompted to post before, as 'DayZ' has generally been a positive experience and anything I need to find out about the game has been available in the threads on here. I've logged over 180 hours in the game which is good for me and shows I enjoy it immensely, despite the nonsense like KoS and snipers. But .55 has been just such a let down. My last toon died of starvation in 20 minutes, but I found a nice coat. Roll on .56.
