NachoNinjaGnome

And, yet, another update to this found issue. It's MP5's that spawn with either the 15 or the 30-round mags. The mags don't appear on the object model, but are definitely there. You just can't remove them from the weapon at all.

Posted too soon again... apparently, it's just the MP5s that spawn in with the 15-round mags that are broken. Found one without a mag and was able to make use of the 30-rounders.

Also, went to use the "Send Feedback" button in the game's main menu. It takes me to a feedback.bistudios.com. Tried to register on THAT site as well to report the bug with the MP5 and it is perpetually stuck on the "Must Verify Email" page. Tried to "Send Another Email" repeatedly since last night, still no email.

Is the MP5 broken? All the MP5s I have found show that they have an empty 15-round magazine, but I can't remove the mag to load or replace it. Just found 2 30-round mags and they're useless, as is the MP5 itself.

Well, if you aren't an active person, sitting around playing video games and discussing them on their respective forums, you probably don't jump much. When I used to go running around in the woods as a kid (and later as a teen and young adult), I did a LOT of jumping. Jumping over ditches, jumping up onto and off of rocks, hurdling fallen trees, etc. When you're avoiding paintball fire, it helps to be able to dive over and behind cover, and the same is true of live fire (as well as escaping zombies :p ). Now, most people can't jump very well, but those who are good at it can do quite a bit with it. The fact that I cant jump from a loading dock onto the top of a van to engage a horde of zombies is one thing that always bugged me about DayZ. I welcome a parkour system, so long as they keep it within reason.

Now, I've only played this experimental a little so far but, so far, there's a HUGE change that should have gone the other way. Why has the melee been slowed down SO much? The melee from stable is already slower than a normal person. It should not take a full second to swing an axe. Realistically, we should be able to swing an axe, at least, twice per second, if not thrice. These characters are survivors of a zombie apocalypse... not the incapable masses that succumbed to the initial chaos. We shouldn't be dealing with inability when most of us could swing an axe better from the sitting position we take behind our computers. We're swinging at zombie heads, not chopping wood. I could understand if we were trying to break down a door or something. In such instances, you would wind up and give it everything you've got. It doesn't take swings like that to kill a person, much less a rotting, animated corpse. Just some food for thought... - NNG

Yeah, I wasn't aware that I was even blocking for quite awhile. Took me a good few minutes just to figure out how to swing with the new system. I just thought that you had to hold down right click in order to swing with left click, which you do, just didn't know that the combat stance was an auto-block. Haven't really had much of a chance to use it though. If you sneak up on a zombie, you can kill it before it even turns around. My issue is when you get aggro you don't see coming and have to whip around to engage an already swinging zombie. Which, the initial aggro usually, results in additional aggro. Then you've got two or three zombies swinging wildly at you while you're swinging wildly and stepping into their swings. Then there's the hits you take that don't appear to touch you which, often, don't result in any sort of hit indication. In such scenarios, I've found, I often take enough hits to cripple me without even realizing that I got hit because of the lack of hit indicators as well as the screen bouncing around as wildly as the character. All I'm asking for is a character with a decent degree of competence in melee fighting. With the current combat system, I feel like a kid from a movie or tv show getting in his first fight, ever, and not knowing how to do it (which was not at all how my first RL fight went). My first fight that I ever got in was my first day of first grade. An older kid, who towered over me by about a foot and must have outweighed me by 15-20 pounds, ran up behind me and tried to tackle me. I had seen him running towards me from across the field and paid him no mind. I then heard the rapid footsteps behind me, looked to right side peripheral without turning my head, saw fingertips, grabbed his wrist with my left and upper arm with my right and hip tossed him. My friends said he caught some significant air, showing me a length of about a foot with their hands that they said was the approximate spacing between our heads at his most vertical. So, me, a little, ignorant, untrained 6-year old was able to flip a significantly larger 8-year old without even watching his approach. If I could do that then, there's no reason these survivors should have such a hard time swinging an axe.

Some players prefer PVE only... and there is enough demand for tools to support such gameplay that it would be wise to have the option available in vanilla.

Seems like everyone is hung up on the discussion about speed, where I even stated that it's not too bad, but could use a little boost. My biggest issue, right now, is that the characters swing wildly and uncontrolled, causing them to move all over the damn place. If I'm not moving the WASD keys, I shouldn't be moving my feet. Also, the issue with not being able to drop what's in your hands in order to pull your melee weapon.

"don't look TOO terribly slow"?... so, just a little slow then? so why not normalize the speed?

Ah... never knew what the premise was, but, again, not asking for super humans, just humans with significant ability. It's just frustrating to swing and miss all over the place when fighting zombies. Swinging an axe is not difficult, but the game makes it so. Also, I wasn't evaluating combat balance yet, was merely suggesting that you actually be able to hold your own against zombies before they balanced the rest of the combat system around a nicely polished melee system. Better to build on a solid foundation than a heap of crap. And before I get all the haters twisting my words, that was a metaphor for the melee system, not DayZ itself. I wouldn't be on here giving "Suggestions" if I thought it was.

Way to pick and choose your arguments... :p Obviously, the girl swinging isn't generating a lot of force. Hence the phrase. "and she isn't even swinging very fast". And I don't really know the girl, so I can't say whether she's got any significant combat skill for such a survival scenario. She was doing a demo, and a demo is what was needed to help present the argument. Most demonstrations, as well as choreographed fights, are slowed for the purposes of allowing the audience to see the movements. In an actual fight, with trained combatants, the majority of movements happen at speeds that the average person can't process. And it REALLY doesn't take much force to cave in or crush a skull at all. With an axe, you don't need a razor edge. The axe is a splitting/crushing weapon, not a slashing/cutting weapon. Considering the human skull can receive a compound fracture from a well placed, well thrown punch, more than enough force could be provided by a short, quick swing with an axe, especially considering the concentration of force at the point of impact. If you look at the second person I pointed out, you can see that he is providing enough force to do some serious damage to a skull, and he's holding back and has some fairly shoddy technique. And yes, Dmitri does display another effective technique, but that's not the technique I was describing, which is why I didn't include that very same video that appears at the top of an "axe fighting" search on Youtube. While effective in open spaces, it's not exactly something that can be done in close quarters. Also, "martial arts doesn't translate well into real world scenario"? ... ... Martial arts DO, in fact, translate into real world scenarios as they were made for real world combat. Granted, so showy styles such as Wushu and Tae Kwon Do aren't as effective as styles such as Bushidokan , Muay Thai and Krav Maga (yes, that's also a "martial art"). They have "art" in the name because, back in the day, the word "art" was used to describe a proficient and applied knowledge. We've only had terms like "science" in recent history. "Martial Arts" is often referred to as "Combat Science" in more modern descriptions. Also-also yes :p the phrase "don't bring a knife to a gunfight" is a common phrase due to dumb asses like that standing still when a gun is pulled. It's like the bet I had with a buddy years ago who wanted to make a similar argument. I informed him that, under the right circumstances, a knife can be just as effective, if not more-so. To prove the point, I handed him a "handgun-style" paintball gun with holster (my buddy used to play with an old toy revolver when he was younger and could do all the little tricks and was a fairly decent quick draw). I grabbed a small paint brush, dipped it in some left over paint from a recent renovation and said, "bet I can hit you before you hit me". I closed the distance and put the paintbrush to his throat before he could even touch the handle. He argued, "I wasn't ready... if we're going to showdown, you gotta do it right." So, I backed up a good few feet and said, "alright, draw". I flung the brush and hit him in the forehead before he even "cleared leather". Now, you can make all the arguments about how "average" people can't do this or that but, I will still maintain that these survivors are not "average". Nobody wants to play a game representing average people. We want bad ass, epic heroes of the apocalypse that lend a sense of grandeur to grant temporary escape from our average lives. That's what video games are for.

It's true for all objects, axe included. Hitting fast with anything is about short, quick, direct movements. If you're trying to hack through an armored opponent, sure, you'll want a full swing, but for the decaying dead, short and sweet would be more than adequate. The way he's holding the axe is, basically, what you want, though you don't need to choke up THAT much. Only, instead of drawing back (adding an unnecessary movement), you swing side to side like they have the combo system configured now, just quicker. It's not about strength... it's about controlled, fluid motion. With a two handed technique, you have a LOT of control over where each part of the weapon is going at any given moment. I wish I had the means to make my own demonstrative video to show you what I mean, but I'm poor, disabled, haven't practiced in years and would probably hurt myself doing the demo. I have, however, done some slight searching through Youtube and found a video that can help to demonstrate what I am trying to explain. Now, keep in mind, these people aren't using the exact technique that I am referring to, but from what they are doing and what I have explained, you should be able to visualize my intended meaning. Check out the girl at 2:25 of the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUYXceCWRTQ and she isn't even swinging very fast and has both hands at the bottom end. Then, check the guy at 3:30 doing his little awkward looking combos. He's not even choked up as much as he could and he's swinging even faster, though you can tell he's holding back as not to hurt his demo volunteer. Now, with the forehand closer to the head of the axe, you can swing even faster. And with more fluid technique, your speed increase would be compounded. These two individuals are very average in their technique and ability. You could see how someone on the higher end of the spectrum might perform.

I understand the importance of game balance, as well as all the associated factors of consideration. The issue is though, why would you want to balance other factors around poor combat performance rather than good combat performance. These are die hard survivors, not meek little cannon fodder. They should perform closer to the bad asses of a zombie apocalypse that would actually still be living after the dead have become the mass majority of the world's population. We've all played the fast paced, high intensity shooters and fighting games that have made gaming such an enjoyable experience. When a game slows things down to an unrealistic degree, it really gives the immersion factor a huge hit and kind of ruins the experience. As for a simple solution, they already had it in the last build. You're running along with a full load of loot, got a backpack, tent, tire, barrel, etc. in your hands and need to pull your axe to deal with an aggro, you drop the object in your hands at your feet (though, slightly to the side) and pull your weapon as if there wasn't anything there to begin with. Now, granted, you could add a bit of an additional animation for tossing it to the side to mitigate the obvious advantage of carrying additional loot, adding a slight delay to the weapon pull animation. They even managed to eliminate the game breaking bug (for the most part) of your dropped items disappearing completely. All that they need to do to improve it is to fix the bug where you have an invisible item in your hands when dragging something from the ground to swap with your held item and have to re-log to see and interact with it.

I'm not expecting the "average Joe" to have "above average" combat capability. I'm expecting that a zombie apocalypse would have killed off the average Joe's, adding them to the hordes of the dead. The survivors would be of above average ability. I'm not talking about your 1 in a million "master level" fighters or anything, just your 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 naturally gifted individuals. The sort of people who pick things up quickly and constantly improve on an incremental basis.

Yes... the quickbar doesn't pull a weapon unless your hands are empty. Also, if you're swinging it faster, it's going to hit harder. Force = Mass * Speed

Never claimed to be a "samurai", but I have trained in martial arts (both armed and unarmed) for over 30 years. In fact, I used to teach other people how to fight with sword, spear, staff, knife (and yes) axe, as well as various other weapon arts. Before succumbing to crippling arthritis, I am quite certain I could easily swing a splitting axe three times per second, accurately and with enough force to split a skull, if not four times. That's why I went for the 2-3 times instead of 3-4. I would assume that one of these survivors is, at least, "proficient" at skills needed to survive a zombie apocalypse. I'm not looking for expert, or even master, level martial arts ability, but certainly that of someone adept at killing zombies.

Guess I spoke too soon... just played a bit more and found the combo possibility. Took some toying around with, but I started to get the hang of it. Just one problem now though. For some reason, the character flings himself around wildly while swinging. I prefer to be in control of my own movement. Fighting is NOT that difficult in real life, why would they make the camera and the character move around so much. It's a convoluted system for such a simplistic action. Also, for some reason, I can't pull out my axe when I have something in my hands. It was an easy obstacle in the previous build. Just drop what you've got in your hands. The 'G' key no longer has that effect. Have to hit 'Tab', click, drag, 'Tab' again, hold right click, then swing. Pfft. Just died because of it. That and because a zombie phased through a wall. I shut myself in shed just so I could safely drop something from my hands so I could engage said zombie. I know experimental always has some kinks, but this just seems like a giant leap backwards.

I have found that tents disappear after 8 days when you have more than three tents in a given area. If you want to keep bases with more than this, you will need to re-pitch each tent (and possibly re-place each barrel as well) every week. I just keep a car tent full of civilian tents for this particular task. Every week, place a few civilian tents, move the gear from your military/car tents into the aforementioned tents, re-pitch the tent, then move the gear back. You will need to do this for each tent you want to keep in your camp. If this seems like too much work, you can just keep several smaller camps scattered around the map with only 3 military tents each for maximum storage. It CAN become quite a chore with larger bases. I had a base on a private PVE server with 80+ tents and 20+ barrels, all full of gear. "Shifting" this base every week would take a good 2 days worth of play time. I recommend keeping it small unless you have help. -NNG aka [RED]Nacho