enduin

Exactly, and its not just server hoppers who are farming good loot spawns, it ghosts. People you get in a fight with who log out, go to another server, move around to a good vantage point or position, log back into your server and shoot you in the back. Its just wayyy too easy now with how fast it is getting into servers. Before it wasnt a problem because logging in could take 5-10 minutes, now its barely 30 seconds.

Probably not a good idea right now in the current state of DayZ, but down the road I believe it would be prudent if your exact position was only saved on the server you logged from. So if you are on say US 20 and you log out next time you log back in and you go back to US 20 youll be exactly where you left off, but if you go to say US 22 you will be spawned in at a safe, and barren, location say 1-5km or so from your previous position. The main reason I think this would be good down the road and not now is that most people dont have a particular reason to stick to any one server at the moment. The server persistent features have yet to be implemented so players have very little connection to any one server. But in the future when we do have said features that allow players to create meaningful permanent structures and changes to the map that are server specific then many players will already have an intrinsic connection towards one particular server. Groups of survivors will all focus on one server in particular they like and have set up roots in and so instituting the aforementioned player position being server specific wont be such a big deal to most since theyll generally be sticking to the same server anyways. It will affect everyone still, but those most affected by it will be those who specifically server hop to loot high yield locations and to grief other players by spawning in on them.

I have to disagree, the zombie count is fine now, and could be increased in the future if needed or possible, but only because the real problem now is that players severely lack many other viable means to deal with zombies other than direct conflict. We need more ways to distract and evade them. Giving flares and to a lesser degree chemlights the same effect that smoke grenades do in distracting zombies is brilliant. But even just running away should eventually prove viable. Ducking through and around buildings should help you evade zombies faster, but even just running after a certain amount of time should make the zombies slowly fall off your trail one by one. If you're bleeding it should be harder, but if not they wont have same bloodlust, literally. It would be cool if we could create traps and lures, like a simple trip wire with cans attached so when a zombie walks through it starts attracting all the other zombies to it so players can sneak by them and clear out an area without actually having to fire a shot. But they would require players find a couple components to build them like tins and whiskey bottles and wire and stuff. Another could a makeshift flashbang, or rather noisebang, put together with a whiskey bottle and some chemicals and when thrown blows up on impact creating a loud noise attracting zombies to it temporarily, or a bloodbomb that requires a whiskey bottle and bloodpack that will lure zombies to it longer than a simple noisebang. If this game is going to provide an authentic zombie survival experience players are going to need a lot more freedom in creating homemade solutions/tools to help them interact with the world, but this too will require players themselves think more strategically and creatively in how they deal with zombies and other players and not just fall back on some items to save their asses. It has to be both, a suite of combinable objects and player ingenuity, one cant make up for the other.

I have to agree a shorter time scale would be preferred. The 24 hour scale is novel but when it comes down to it, it doesnt actually offer all that much and has a number of very clear and prevalent drawbacks. Cutting it back to 12, or even 8 hour days, would still provide players with extended periods of day and night, but they would at least be able to experience it all on one server and in one sitting when they have free time. And this is from a person who prefers nightime.

A ghillie suit would be awesome, but because they are very very useful and would put a player with one at a clear advantage in rural areas they should have an appropriate drawback and I think that having them take up the backpack slot would be more than reasonable.

Yes, some feel they serve a purpose right now, but that shouldnt be the case in the future, and the longer you wait to remove them the more uproar there will be once you do.

The solution to any supposed Bandit "problem" is one that affects every player and doesnt just simply punish those who play as a Bandit because Survivors dont like them. That includes rewarding Survivors. The core of the issue is that the Zombie threat is an after thought and death in general isnt al that big a deal, for everyone. To deal with that you could make everyone respawn with even less gear to make character death even more dramatic. You could use temporary bans on players when they die so they cant rejoin that specific server for an hour or two after theyve died, neither of these ideas are all that perfect though. Really the best way to limit and stabilize the PVP rates is to make the rest of the game a lot harder. More zombies, that are more aggressive, abundant and have more spawn points and reactions to players actions. Make the zombie threat far more menacing. Make it so when a player fires their weapon, depending on a number of factors, noise, location, etc, theres a varying chance that small to large sized hordes of zombies will spawn a certain distance around them and then move in on their position. So if you fire off your CZ on a player/zombie/cow 300 meters out, you have a 20% chance of a horde of 23 zombies from spawning somewhere near you in a 250 meter radius and they will start to move in on your position where you fired your shot. This wouldnt simply affect Bandit but all players and would make it far more difficult for people to go alone, camp certain areas and simply not fear the zombie threat in the game. Other things need to be changed as well since a number of players have found good camping spots at various popular spots like the NW Airfield, Hospital and other areas where they jump from server to server killing other players, strip the area of loot and then jump to a new server to repeat so other players dont even have a chance at any kind of retribution or revenge. Alt-F4ing is a similar issue. So things like that will require a more deliberate consequence and solution.

I do like the realistic time scale, but at the same time I see it as being a hindrance in the future. Its going to be a barrier for a lot of people in setting up a community on a specific server because no one wants to just play at the same time every day, since most people have limited time in real life to play the game. I think the if the game allowed for servers to run on 2x or 3x real life time that would be great. Even at 3x normal speed an hour in game would last 20 minutes real time. It would still take a full 8 hours for a day to cycle through. So day and night just wouldnt pass by in a flash and would still be sufficiently long. But they would still pass by fast enough so that players could experience all hours of the day in game and develop a server specific community that they meet up in and invest in. This will become especially important when Rocket and crew introduce more features that allow players to alter and customize the world, like reinforcing buildings and setting up bases and what not. People shouldnt have to play the game all day from early morning till late at night in order to experience a full days cycle in game. Nor should have be forced to jump from server to server.

Why not just factor in the weight to the size of the object so people just need to worry about fitting stuff in their inventory and not also weight management. This being an online game you don't want to be stuck in your backpack fiddling with inventory.

It's an interesting idea though it might be a bit too abstract. When I first saw the thread title my mind immediately went to automatic updates tracking players actions width little updates like "found a Winchester in XYZ". Especially if they have a tent or secret stash buried somewhere. So if you are murdered or someone happens to find your body they'll be able to read this journal and find out where you're stash or tent are and they can try and raid it, but at the same time you can booby trap them to prevent theft and get back at any bandit who might have killed you. But like you idea you cash also place in custom messages. Again for your own pleasure but also to maybe trap others like the guy who killed you.

To me banditry is awesome and should never be punished. Its a legitimate and interesting way to survive in the wonderful world of Zombie infested Chernarus. But what does bother me is griefing, there definitely a number of individuals who just kill other players for the sake of killing them and not due to any real strategic reason, like loot or safety, but just to ruin someones day. Which isnt very sportmans like. That said though, while greifing should be fround upon, theres no viable way at present to stop it or punish it without fundamentally changing the game and thus punishing all players for any degree of Banditry, legitimate or not. Really the only thing I can think of that would be a simple and passive way of "dealing" with bandits and PKing would be to alter the player death message in the chat box. So when "MasterDeBater" is killed near Elektro it pops up in the chat saying "MasterDeBater was Murdered near Elektro," instead of simply "MasterDeBater was killed." This kind of notificiation would then warn others a PKer is in the area and they can either A) avoid that area or B) go on the hunt for a bandit. Which the bandit can then also prepare for my leaving or taking up a defensive position to take out or ambush any would be Bandit Hunters. This wouldnt punish anyone for their actions or put any kind of handicap on anyone, but just add a small and rather vague bit of detail that players could utilize in a great many ways. Though that kidn of notification shouldnt be used in Hardcore servers. Everyone in those are on their own.

Yeah I thought of that, but it kind of comes with the territory. There are two ways you could deal with it. One would be to make paint rare-ish and limited in uses so when people find it theyll have more of an incentive to use it wisely since its in limited supply. The second and much more constrictive way would be to just create specific phrases and words that people can select that are then placed on surfaces in a canned animation. And some vandals can be cool, like literally painting the town red and other stuff like that. I think the pros far outweigh the cons of a juvenile minority. Paint thinner could be another item so people can alter and mess with other people's messages setting up ambushes and stuff.

Didn't see any threads on this and you guys might already be planning for something like this, but having the ability to paint on buildings, streets, etc and create makeshift signs of our own would be really intriguing. Leaving messages for other players. Warnings, directions, helpful tips, lies to lure people into traps, tags for bandit territory and more. This would make for a lot of cool player interactions and group dynamics. Second to that and unrelated to paint is player names, which could be fun. I know a lot of people are interested in more choices for player models and and customization and I think a cool addition to that would be to let players name each character they make and have that name register in a databank which could then be used to show daily death rolls of those who died on the Day Z site, when and how and where. So you could see if your friends is still alive or dead. As well this same data back could be used to name special zombies that might have a piece of loot on them or not. So a player might end up killing their former persona or friend who is now undead.