aaronlands

As I said the large sound radius was an objectively impressive accomplishment. The classic "don't fix it if it ain't broke" is certainly coming to mind on this change.

I think the response to the changes with the gun shots has been met with criticism. And the confirmation on the feedback tracker that it has been purposefully changed in the name of game balance raises some more questions. I wonder if there is any technical rationale behind the decision. Does it somehow improve server performance to have a smaller sound radius? It has always been an objectively impressive part of the dayz sound system for gunshots to have realistic travel sounds. I wonder if this change has denigrated that achievement. The infected have certainly changed in this patch. They are more difficult 1v1 although it's easy enough to change your rhythm to still be effective at killing them. I admit there was something satisfying about 1 hitting infected pre-1.12 but I think it was a bit ridiculous to be punching them to death on the regular. In 1.12 facing more than 1 infected becomes a big problem which is generally a good thing. I think the infected spawning is wonky. A lot more zeds spawning on roofs in this patch. I also think that if the developers have decided to increase the difficulty of zeds it should be balanced with more "area persistence" meaning that when an area is "cleared" it should stay so for a longer period of time. It is immersion breaking to clear an area, cross over to the next street and then return to the previous area and have zeds spawned in again. Maybe this is challenging from a technical perspective. I have no qualms with the increased zed difficulty if it is coupled with smarter and more intuitive zed spawning. I don't like that the infected stop attacking you when unconscious. It just doesn't make sense. Shouldn't infected stop attacking you if you stop moving then? Playing dead would be the logical "meta" in a world where they stop attacking you when you stop moving. Imagine how silly it would be to be chased by zeds and then just plop to the ground leading them to give up the pursuit. I have yet to experience the ballistics changes but more unconscious states is a good thing and we can only hope that the medical systems become more complex with respect to injuries.

What kind of changes are coming to DayZ in the coming year? Fortifying houses? Fixed cars? More realistic wounds?

Admittedly, they "say" a lot less than they used to.

I think there are three 'states': 1. wandering around, 2. investigating a sound or movement, and 3. chasing a target. I am wondering if it would be good to have the thunder activate the infected into state 2. Also I really like that the rain and thunder affect their perception.

Also what do you all think of thunder (if close enough in proximity) triggering the 'search mode' in infected? I thought it would be interesting if loud thunder bangs caused infected to start looking around.

I had the drill kit in mind when thinking about the ability to shave bark with a hatchet. I've had moments where I hunted an animal but couldn't find a knife for ages in order to collect bark and some of meat went rotten.

So, does anyone have any thoughts on collecting bark? Now with cold temperatures being more of a threat and fires more of a necessity I found it quite frustrating that I am not able to harvest bark from trees with a hatchet or axe. I understand that there are reasons for keeping specializations between items limited (you do not want every item to be a multitool) but surely there must be some way to implement collecting bark with items other than a knife.

Wait, so are bears spawning in Chernarus now? I thought they weren't when the patch first released.

This is a farcical appeal to 'authenticity' and is not a very solid argument.

Yes this has to be the DayZ equivalent of "A Modest Proposal" (A satirical essay from the 1700s where the author suggests that poor people sell their young as food).

I suspect they went the way of character transferability between the two maps because it wouldn't work with how official servers are set up on DayZ. This is just a guess! Still, I'm not defending this decision as it was a lot of fun on the experimental to have a completely separate and siloed experience. I usually defend this game but I am not a fan of this choice.

Yeah I think the night light is still a less than desirable 'solution'. I think I preferred it when it was just punishingly dark.

Gotta go with @William Sternritter on this one, at least in terms of general strategic methods. It's a careful balance when dealing with players. If you insult players too much (and that unfortunately can mean asking them to put their hands up or as my brother does, yelling: "Strip!") it can activate a sort of kamikaze mode. I find often it is best to establish communication but keep distance and objects and buildings in between. I've definitely had encounters which started out with both having their guns drawn. I never really get angry at KoS because I understand that people will respond in such different ways that I have to account for that when approaching anyone. This is an aside but, really DayZ is the embodiment of the Hobbesian state of nature where no one has laid down their absolute rights in return for a social contract. In other words, I know that you know that you can kill me at any moment's notice to get your way. Hobbes said it best: "In such condition [state of nature], there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Vigilante Gamer, which was recommended to me by another user on this forum, has a collection of YouTube videos that while old still stand the test of time. He has a video series on approaching other dangerous players (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q51PFEBlKDw) and one where he applies Sun Tzu's Art of War to DayZ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn9gcOOjnvA

@Greensek Thank you for your responses in this thread. I am not sure if it is appropriate to ask in this thread but I am curious to know if there are any planned changes to the handheld transceivers in the game? As far as I can tell they have remained unchanged since release yet not many players seem to find any incentive to use them. Perhaps the static noise in the game could be adjusted lower to make the sound less abrasive to the player and other surrounding players or maybe the sound level of a pristine or worn walkie talkie could be lowered?

I assumed the exact same thing!

Just to be clear, is that issue with the jerrycan on the experimental branch?

Arguably, those items shouldn't even have inventory space. I would prefer that they just be used as warmth layers. They would add some weight to your character but would provide another layer against wetness and cold. Maybe it's because I'm currently laying in bed sick at the beginnings of winter that I would like to see the temps turned down a bit in DayZ in general.

The way I look at it: You're right, the difficulty level should be maintained. Dehydration while its raining doesn't make much sense from a gameplay perspective. Its a pretty challenging issue to find a solution to in my mind. I was thinking maybe wet clothes could halt the depletion of water while still adding a temperature penalty but then I think this might be exploited. Maybe the character could 'drink' from the rain/sky while its raining and receive miniscule amounts of water. Of course they would be suffering a wetness penalty (unless wearing a raincoat) so this could be an option that at least on the surface addresses the illogicality of dying of dehydration while its raining. Also it would be interesting because you would have to look up at the sky which means you would be particularly vulnerable. Additionally, having mechanics to allow for water collection and storage in a base could be interesting. Maybe combining a rain coat with some sticks and a water container could allow you to construct a water collector. Ideally this would be linked to storms but if that is too technically complicated it should just fill up very slowly over time (but even that might be too technically demanding). It's difficult to come up with suggestions because my actual knowledge of the technical aspects of the game's code is incomplete and tiny.

I think this sounds more like an exploit than an intended feature. I don't think this sort of exploit can be be accurately construed as an example of how the game is to be played.

I can't really say much about making heavier guns incur penalties with aiming and such. I have to think about that one? Does Insurgency use that system? With the suggestion that guns should make more sounds, I like the idea of a damaged ak sounding different but I'm not entirely sold on the idea. I watched a video where a guy fired an ak until its barrel melted and caught the wooden handle on fire (https://youtu.be/EwSJiAwoMpY?t=349). It didn't seem to sound any different.

Now this suggestion might piss off some of you camels (aka water hoarders) out there but hear me out: Players should not be able to store cooking pots with water on their characters or in their backpacks. Instead, when the cooking pot is filled with water it should not be able to be placed into your inventory. This allows the cooking pot to still be used as a cooking device and storage device but precludes it from being used as a superior water container. Cooking pots in real life are not typically made with sealable lids and even if that is the case the icon and object in DayZ just appears to be a regular cooking pot. In reality, if you stored such a pot in your backpack you would have a wet bag pretty quickly. The current state of cooking pots as water containers reduces the usefulness and/or increases the redundancy of the canteen and the water bottle. Implementing the above change would bring more value to the other items mentioned. Of course, a jerry can would still be allowed to carry water and be stored in your inventory because it is a sealable container. Currently, running around with a cooking pot filled with water makes little sense and discourages frequent water runs as the pot can keep you hydrated for such a long amount of time. I think this small change, if it could be easily implement, would do much to balance the water situation in the game. Can anyone comment on the technical possibility of this change? Would this limitation (cooking pot being unstorable when filled with water) be possible with the current game configuration?

Also I should mention, that in a recent 1.06 experimental I believe they are considering two changes to water mechanics: 1) The water bottle will hold twice as much water (50 changed to 100); and 2) the canteen will only take up a 2x2 space (smaller) from the patch notes (https://forums.dayz.com/topic/246782-dayz-livonia-pc-open-beta/?page=1) These changes will increase the water storage capacity of players. As seen in this topic, whether this makes the cooking pot's water storage a further redundancy or a unbalanced mechanic is an area of debate . I am amused by the idea of carrying a cooking pot filled with water and two full canteens and a full water bottle inside. I am become Waterboy©.

True and I concede that it isn't directly related. But the water storage amounts of the cooking pot combined with their portability and combined with water needs creates a situation where the player can too easily remain in a status of 'fully hydrated and on the move.' These are value judgements so there is room for disagreement on this point. I think it's just a bit unbalanced and I think players should be able to collect water in storage containers and such but I don't think the cooking pot is the appropriate mechanism. I also generally play where I get saturated and move from point to point. The cooking pot is very helpful in allowing me to sprint long distances because half a cooking pot generally gets you close to the 'stuffed' stage of fullness. It allows me to effectively ignore wells for long periods of time in way which I find is unrewarding and a bit too easy.

I had thought of this as an alternative option. The only downside I can think of is that this might be a more technically demanding solution which requires the server to keep track of all the levels of water in players backpacks. Might be a bit much but I honestly know very little about the coding of the game and this is just a guess. If it were easy to implement without any performance impact then this idea is ideal. I agree except that I still want cooking pots to store water but only if it is not in storage. In other words, the cooking pot will only store water if it is in the player's hands or on the ground. I think players should still be able to collect water from a pond and boil it to make clean water and perhaps distribute the water to canteens and I still think players should be able to boil food as this is a legitimate means of cooking . As to the other comments by posters, I see your points about how arguments grounding in realism are not effective as it is a game after all. I agree that ideally there shouldn't be an overall rarity of water storage containers. Perhaps the cooking pot is acting as a placeholder in lieu of the fact that you would be able to find tons of bottles. From a gameplay perspective I still see a few issues. First, the redundancy of water bottles and canteens in comparison to cooking pots is not effective game design. Second, if you really hydrate yourself (like where you see the icon as white and full but you keep drinking) AND you have a cooking pot full of water, the player's need for water seems almost unintentionally diminished. Third, while I know appeals to realism are not always effective given the inconsistency of design decisions within the game , it makes very little sense that you can store items in a cooking pot when those items should conversely take up volume and reduce the amount of water storage. Also another thought, the speed of the plucking of chickens was used an example of another unrealistic element of the game. But surely, this doesn't really bring us any closer to analyzing these gameplay mechanics in a critical way. Of course there are going to be unrealistic decisions: it is a game! But water consumption/depletion is a very finely tuned part of the experience and is very close to the character's survival. I think where survival and core mechanics (blood, food, water, health, sickness) are concerned, upmost attention should be paid to the objects and processes which directly affect these mechanics.