lakevu

i am not trying to "suffocate" your opinion. i am trying to redirect it. to show you that this is not the core issue. the core is is the core mechanics of the game. which gun values are a reflection of those cores. gun values are so far down the logical stream of what is effecting eachother that your focus is misplaced. and yes. my issue and should be yours. IS CORE. there is nothing more important than the movement of a game. as the movement determines WHAT TYPE of game it will be. there is no deeper level than this. just imagine DOOM. an arena shooter switched its movement to slow paced military sim level movement. would it still be DOOM? or would it be a tactical military shooter based in hell?

once again. this. is. not. important. why are you instead not focusing on the fact that the gunplay is stupidly easy and moronic whether or not the gun damage is correct or not? who cares if the current gunplay is that of point and clicking with very little effort or intelligence at all? where you can run down the whole airfield and instantly pull your gun up and have perfect accuracy as if you didnt just run a marathon. i would think this is of much more important value that whether a gun should be a one or two shot kill. along with other things like being able to spin 720's with just the flick of your wrist with no character turn speed. again. i would think this is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than where a guns ballistics are correct or not.

i would argue this is not true. atleast not anymore. from my experience since .63 launched (the new engine change). the vast majority of people i have met could care less about any of that and only want to shoot as many people as possible and only see the game as cod with a slight hint of flavor of surviving. ive met arma 2 veterans here and there but it is MASSIVELY out numbered by the amount of people ive met new to the game or have just come from console. but why is this? where did these cod casuals come from? and why are they here? because of the mechanical changes to the game that make it by nature more casual. and by making the game more casual it has had a self selection bias to that type of person to want that type of experience. BECAUSE MECHANICS MAKE A GAME WHAT IT IS. mechanics determine whether a game is call of duty of arma 2. but yeah this is the part that pisses me off the most is this constant, incessant quoting of "BUT PLAYER COUNTS ARE RISING", "ITS THE MOST PLAYERS ITS EVER HAD!". without ever even asking the question. who are the players? who are we attracting? and MOST IMPORTANTLY. is how we achieved this attraction by having INTEGRITY to the games identity? or have we sold the game out and debased the game to make it something that it is in fact not? @Kyiara (and kyiara, the reason i am tagging you at the end of these comments ive made is because these are the ones i want you to pay attention to because they are the most important. you have to ask question like these when judging the performance of a game and not just by player numbers. like, how did we get them? who are they? and what did we have to do to get them? did we have to compromise on the integrity of the game to do it? all questions you have to ask to discover if what is being done is RIGHT or WRONG) this seems to be the case most evidently. with the pursuit of higher and higher player counts AT ALL COSTS. just so long as the game stays within the lines of some very vague, superficial, simple understanding of what dayz IS and what it IS NOT. and i am certain at this point that that understanding does not go deeper than "zombies, disaster and chernarus" and thats it! thats as deep as the understanding goes to what this game is. no understanding about how dayz identity IS a realistic zombie apocalypse survival simulator. where REALISM is the core ETHOS of the game. it is meant to FEEL real. all of it. every single part. the movement. the gunplay. the vehicles. the zombies! everything. and thats not even going into the art or "aesthetics" part of the game that have been heavily deserted since arma 2 and pretty much completely erased at this point of the game in standalone. where shadows. SHADOWS! are basically a non existent to the game. SHADOWS! come on. if that isnt an epic fail of art direction and aesthetics understanding of what it means to be in an apocalypse i dont know what is.

just in comment to your last statement of "its a survival game not a military simulator" this is false disregarding the conversation of what "military simulator" really means in the relation to this game and whether it even matters as both would have the same things except one has zombies and eating food and the other does not but this does not delete a fact. 1.) dayz's identity was genesised on the back of a military simulator. without it then we would have no dayz. that is how it began and it is important to the identity of the game and what it is. those mechanics that made it what it was and SHOULD be.

and now you see. because the intent is not to be real anymore. the intent is meant to be arcade and accessible. to suck in as many players as they can and they know that is easier to do by making the game easier than it is to focus on the true identity of the game and make a really convincing, authentic, zombie survival experience. @Kyiara i mean really just think about it. which is easier to do? slowly build a statue of david that takes strenuous amounts of mental effort and time? or just make something that is "safe", easy and not groundbreaking that the "vast majority" will accept because it is "something", anything! because they have no standards or desire for great things. Which is easier? @Mjones (DayZ)if you want to save the game. if you want to save dayz and return it back to its roots where i hope you think it belongs you have to focus on the source. and that source is the games movement and gunplay mechanics aswell as a true understanding of the games TRUE identity. because if you can not only understand but PROVE what something IS you can assert how it SHOULD BE. ive written another post titled "dayz's flawed foundations" it is on the first page of suggestions, i recommend you go check that out to better understand what the source reason is why we cant have realistic anything in this game anymore and where the change needs to begin in order to bring it back.

you concern is warranted but its source is misidentified. dayz no longer desires to be a "realistic" game. you can see this to be proven in its mechanics of movement annddd its gunplay. if a games mechanics cease to be realistic why would the ballistics follow suite? you frustration lies not in ballistics but the very foundations of the game that dont make those ballistics congruent to the rest of the game. why have realistic ballistics when the whole of the rest of the game is itself not realistic? @Kyiara

are you forgetting? you had to buy arma 2 and operation arrowhead to play dayz. the game was certainly not "free". and i heard countless stories about how people, including myself, specifically bought a pc just to play that game. which is a much greater jump and drive of desire vs the pumped up numbers right now with people who only play with gamepass. and NOOOO. it was not pure novelty. and NOOO i am not looking back with rose tinted glasses. how do i know? because i barely remember the times i had specifically in the game but you know what i still do? i still boot up frankies old videos and watch them from the mod days because they still hold up. BECAUSE the game still holds up. and yes i understand. why is nobody playing it now if its so great? which is fair but not the slam dunk you want it to be. and that is because the mod. even though it does have the atmosphere, the art, and all the extra great stuff in aesthetics. there are baselevel evolutions that are in the standalone that do make it more enjoyable to play. like the more enjoyable first person play. more indepth interaction with the world because of the model size increase. all that stuff that is more gameplay enjoyable vs the mod. which the mod at this point can be enjoyed as a piece of art but not as a better GAME. game meaning mechanics and inputs that we have right now. and i want to say this. this does not mean standalone is better. this just means it has crucial aspects that are slightly better than before that make it more enjoyable to PLAY. not more enjoyable as a whole experience. as it is a GAME. GAMEPLAY must come first, otherwise what are we doing? but if we do every other variable imaginable and compared it to the mod it would fail. sounds, looks, UI, lighting. all that extra stuff that makes the surrounding of the game. the mod would win hands down without even doing an indepth analysis. all you have to do is look at it. CHRIST the standalone doesnt even have any goddamn shadows. and in regards to my "bottom of the barrel" comment. lets just real honest look at the type of people the current game is attracting. attracting because of the type of game it is. and the type of game it IS because of the current mechanics that make it that type of game. Kids! short minded impulsive people. and the cod shooters who couldnt care less about survival and the zombie apocalypse and just more or less want a big map battle royale. nothing to do with the apocalypse or zombies or any sense of existence within the game. just a shooter. This is what i mean by "bottom of the barrel". instead of making the game the way it SHOULD be. what it was always MEANT to be. to be the definitive zombie survival game, of authenticity, reality and existence. the game is being built to attract people based off their vices. of short attention spans, impulsiveness, uninterested in anything but gaining some sort of self esteem from killing the most people. and not even in any difficult fashion either because the current gunplay is basically point and click at this point. so yes. I would argue that is in fact, "bottom of the barrel". to cater to peoples vices instead of pushing them to be better than that and in return attract people who are the opposite of those qualities. and just as a last thing. i hate! hate! when people chalk things up to "rose tinted glasses" or "nostalgia". especially in the context of this game, because it simply isnt true. that just because a game is old means it is instantly worse. or to disregard the idea that we may have devolved and not in fact being moving upward to bigger and better things. especially with this game it really irritates me because i know. ive done the work and analyzed what made that game special and i know this isnt true. and it just shows me that who ever is saying "thats just nostalgia, you're delusional" has not done the leg work of actually analyzing the game and discovered what truly went right with dayz mod and what made it extraordinary a creation. it just really upsets me because it says to me that person refuses to think or at the very least NOT THINK TOO HARD. to discover the truth of things.

While this is true this should not be mistaken as a sign success. Why? Because of a couple of factors. 1.) there is no better game. Running a race without anyone against you means you always come in first 2.) compared to dayz mod these numbers are pathetically low. Dayz mod was by some accounts in the 800,000 player range. Without consoles. How did this happen? Was it just dumb luck because it was one of the first? No this is not the reason because we see a lot of games that have this happen even today that don’t get that much success. So what is the reason? Because dayz mod had all the right fundamentals of mechanics and aesthetics that made it one of the most amazing creations that has ever existed to date. Everything was right. The way it looked, it sounded, it felt (movement and gunplay). Everything was right and was right for what it was trying to simulate. An apocalypse. but to say dayz is popular right now and in the same breathe add console to that is just admitting that the game is reaching for the bottom barrel of achievement not upward to higher standards. Going down in an attempt to gain players, not up.

boost last comment october 27 today is november 10 (14 days, 2 weeks)

just some more examples of how the games soul has been lost since the beginning. take a look at the old dayz mod forums website compared to this barren boring one we have now devoid of any life and any passion http://joe-horan.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/web-menu22.jpg

yes i absolutely agree the game was more "immersive" before 1.0. but i have a hard time imagining that this would be acceptable on console. the reason why this is not a brainhemoraging issue on pc is because the mouse allows you to reasonably correct the sway associated with the gun being disconnect from the camera. now imagine this on console with trying to achieve this with just thumbsticks. that seems like a very frustrating experience in my mind. and if you dont believe me try and pick up "hunt showdown" for console sometime and try it. it doesnt have everything that dayz had but at the least it 100% has no aim assist and just that alone is enough to basically destroy that game. which i played myself to know and couldnt believe it until i saw it. but now imagine that with a gun swaying all over the place and trying to fight sway AND recoil with just thumbsticks. its just unreasonable and a completely unenjoyable experience on any level. which is why it wont ever come to console because the controller itself is unable to accompany that level of engagement to gameplay that doesnt become overtly frustrating. but yet all of these features that you identified are important to the game. Why? because they are REALITY. that IS real. and without them your brain cannot lull itself into even beginning to think that the game could may just be reality. which as an effect takes you out of the game and makes you treat it and feel it as "just a game" instead of FEELING like it is real life. you can not hope to achieve the feeling of " this is really reality" in a video game if you dont follow the rules of reality. things like physics, vehicles motion, sounds, MOVEMENT! etc etc. all pieces of the puzzle that must resemble reality for you mind to be tricked into feeling and emotionally reacting to the game AS IF it were actually real. which is why arma 2 is such a great testament to gaming because it achieved just that and consequentially created one of the deepest most emotionally responsive experiences in gaming that has ever been created.

it is unfortunate yes but i think this is more a problem because of the standard of the current game which naturally pushes people in that direction than willfully wanting to pursue those experiences. so people just dont know any better or at the least cant envision a higher ideal of what "could be" or what they are missing out on. so they take what they are given and settle and accept it as an absolute. it takes alot of work to analyze the game and identify its short comings nevermind trying to envision a better version in your head about how things could be better. ! - Make dayz great again!

i see i personally have never played dayz on console but from what ive seen its complete garbage and on the same level as any cod game that is ported to the Wii. i am skeptical when you say that controller is holding the game back and for 2 reasons. 1.) thumbsticks just arent as conducive to real like than a mouse. the accuracy is far lower than you would be able to reasonably achieve in real life. 2.) the amount of buttons. there is just less buttons which extremely hamper the amount of control you can exert on the game. which naturally leads the game to becoming "simplistic" simply because that is all the controller allows. it is just an inherent effect of having less control space. Which to prove this i advise you to think about what arma 2 would feel like on a controller vs how you feel with a keyboard. does the controller inherently feel more "casual" and "simple" compared to the keyboard. because that is the mental effect controllers have on gaming naturally because of their ergonomic design. "casual" and "easy to use"

im not saying anything like that. like coming in here and "thanking us" but just being in here like the old guys use to do would be nice and just actually show that they care even a little bit about this. because its not the same as a "community manager" than actual people responsible for making the game. it just isnt. and yeah man i cant state how bad i feel for you that you didnt play arma 2. it is literally the statue of david when it comes to video games. everything at every single level just fell into place for that game. truly a aesthetically aswell as atmospheric masterpiece in gaming. you should really go watch frankies old videos on youtube if you want to get a glimpse into what that game truly offered as an experience.

boost last comment october 12th, today october 26th (2 weeks, 14 days)

i would argue arma 2 dayz was a complete better game. it was more intense. more scary. more surreal. im not saying that the current game is terrible because it does have things better than the old game. but as two products put against eachother arma 2 IS the better experience and yes i think the mod was made with LOADS more passion than the game is right now. just for example the creators of the mod use to stay up night and day scouring the forums talking to people and spent loads of hours thinking of ideas to improve the game to be the best zombie survival simulator it could be. nothing like we see right now where its barely got a pulse.

well i hope that by writing i may do something to change this. that i might be able to persuade to make the game as good as it use to be. to have the same level of "soul" and "experience" that the game was when it was arma 2. a great part of which is the devs, the ideas they hold and even the controls that all have a play into why the game is the way it is now and what i would describe as an "arrested" state than it could be.

can you explain to me what you believe the premise is?

actually the controller does have an effect on how you play a game. i dont know if you ever played arma 2 but imagine playing that with a controller. it would either be completely impossible with the lack of controls available or it just wouldnt feel the same because of the complete lack of accurancy allowed with the controls. that being thumbsticks vs mouse. because the controller is so "casual" and easy to use and comfortable it is very difficult to have a "serious" experience while playing a game. definitely not as serious when you are on the computer. but the controller is completely secondary to the systems in the game currently. because the systems are still used on pc aswell. and you can see if you play pc this same pattern presents itself in the servers available right now. where they are all retarded, high loot, unlimited stam and compltely "unserious" levels of play. but why is this? why is this the pattern? because that is the game it is now because of the systems inside of it. one of the most important systems being how the player controller moves, behaves and feels. which just simply is not CONGRUENT to a serious sense of experience. ive actually written a post about this right below this one titles "dayz's flawed foundations: movement and gunplay". where i talk about this alot more what i am saying here and why i explain that because of the games current systems it can not be the hardcore zombie survival simulator it was always meant to be. and which it's IDENTITY is based upon.

no i understand but the way the game is built just amplifies the problem and actual makes it so those changes are CONGRUENT with the total game. which just gives them an even bigger incentive to do it because thats basically what the game is already. so what do i mean by this beyond abstractions? if you look at the current player controller or aka "how your player reacts, handles and moves. it is all very synonymous with call of duty actions. immediate direct changes. very quickly going from standing to lying down. NO TURN SPEED LIMITER! and you see that the core of the game is meant to be catered to this gameplay style. which then in turn makes it so these, high loot, unlimited stamina etc etc bullshit servers are not as outlandish as they should be. because they are CONGRUENT with the soul core of the game currently. it is the logical conclusion to what is in the game right now.

this is very true. but let me ask you this. can you blame them? the player controller is built for fast easy gameplay with the way you character turns to how stupid the gunplay is. can you blame them for just simply following the logic of the base game? making it consistent with what is already there?

true. but remember. dayz started on arma 2. which had this aesthetic to a T. and made it feel consistent with the environment it started in

i see what you mean. especially with the timeline inconsistencies with the rusted vehicles and such. but i dont think this was always the case or even is the case. as the game is meant to be set in eastern europe. a pretty shit part of the world where i would think rusty cars are pretty common and such. that is how it started. so i would say it is very inline with the timeline of the game being well within the first couple weeks or even days the of the outbreak

i think it could be intersting to do what riddick is saying though. like have 2-3 servers that never wipe and just see what happens. could be interesting

ok i definitely see what you mean. and i would say i would like to see it done. cause why not? and test it and see what happens. but i believe vanilla servers are very longterm servers. i think they only get wiped every update. for stability reasons or such or incongruencies with the previous patch necessitating a full wipe. but heres another idea. what happens to the people that never get to experience the beginning of a fresh world? if servers never wipe then would they never be able to experience that ever? i think thats a big part of the experience of seeing the apocalypse right at the beginning and see it slowly evolve with groups controlling areas and such which is able to be seen in rapid time because of 3 month wipes some servers have. so what about that? should people just never be able to have that beginning world experience if servers never wipe? and one last thing. yes. i can reach endgame very quickly. with a built base and full inventory in minimum a week. ive done it several times already. and this only becomes shorter the more people you have and god forbid you have people in different time zones that never stop playing. so yes i would argue the curve of achievement is very low and very shallow currently in the game. which is another reason why i argue wipes are important because without them they get boring and stale.