Katana67

Not to be debbie downer, but they said the AK-74M would come out too... but released the AK-101 instead. So it could be that Torchia just said "AKS74U" because it's a familiar model and we'd know what he's talking about, and they really intend to release a 5.56x45 or 7.62x39 variant (of which there are many). I've inquired about what the plan is, hopefully I hear something positive with regard to 5.45x39. If not, I personally won't mind. But if so, cool beans. And I would caution you against retroactively casting yourselves to be "downtrodden." Many of the arguments put forth for why 5.45x39 should be included, were just as un-effing-reasonable as the arguments you're now saying were the result of a "majority" against you (even though, ironically, when the actual argument about 5.45x39 was happening... many of you claimed to be representing a majority). And if you're proud of fighting against compromise, then you're an extremist. And extremists cannot be reasoned with, which is something that I personally do not find to be praiseworthy. So, perhaps consider a little grace/humility if things go your way (which they haven't just yet). And it's not without a measure of condescension when I say this, but you didn't see me creating a victory lap thread whenever they decided to rename the AK-74M to get it in the game (which actually happened). To re-iterate, I want 5.45x39. I do not view it as a necessity. It would be a good addition.

Meh, I don't really have a problem with it being included now. But two things need to change eventually... 1. High-capacity magazines need to be much, much, much rarer than they are right now. 2. Magazines overall need to be spawning empty, most if not all of the time. It's absurd to stumble upon a 75-round mag that's full, every single time you find one. Not only do you get a high-capacity magazine, but you also get 75-100 rounds of whatever ammunition you need. Sort of defeats the purpose of splitting up ammunition and magazines (which was a touted feature of the standalone, by comparison to the mod) if magazines always spawn full of ammunition anyway. I'm fine with (but still do not favor) magazines occasionally spawning with weapons, if they're empty.

Neat! An SBR AK, regardless of what caliber it's chambered in, is going to be wonderful! And an AK-101 retexture, sort of odd, but welcome I suppose. I was pretty satisfied with the texture already, perhaps they'll allow it to be painted soon. Would like to see something a bit different come through after they've nailed down all the requisite AK-pattern weapons. AK-101 (i.e. "modernized AK"), AKM (i.e. traditional AK), AKS-74U (i.e. SBR AK), and some sort of RPK (i.e. HBAR AK) should be enough. Perhaps then they can either focus on new overall weapon archetypes (like LMGs, battle rifles, etc.) We should be good on the assault rifle end of things for a while. Derringer, meh, it's alright. Certainly not against it, but I think after the Derringer, we should be all set for pistols for a while too. Can't wait for the SPOSN pack, need something new. The Hunting Pack is getting old. Also cool beans about the rangefinder, also glad to see the M4 drum mag being considered. Not like they're at a loss of choice for SBR AKs in a variety of calibers.

Moreover, I think end-game needs to be redefined. It's not, or shouldn't be, a fixed point at which one can say "I've acquired X, therefore I've succeeded." Nor should it be reduced to a "choose your own end-game" concept because that still results in fixed point end-games. Someone's end-game can be a base, it can be a helicopter, it can be a DMR... but those are still finish lines. I'd like to see DayZ have no finish line. Or rather, another race after the finish. That race is, somewhat obviously, the aspect of survival. Survival isn't about getting what you need/want and having it forever. It's about fighting for and maintaining what you've already got. This has never been an aspect of DayZ, not yet in the alpha and not in the mod. Maintaining valuable gear, a threatening environment, and mere existence in the world of Chernarus need to be constant concerns for the player so that he/she is always engaged in the process of survival. Whether I have a rock or an M240, I should be constantly operating under the assumption that I may not have that rock/M240 if X happens. The problem is, the variables for failure are either singular (i.e. player kills player, I lose what I have only if I die) or nonexistent. Thereby making the process of survival linear, rather than cyclical.

Question 1 - Release the list Torchia! No sense in hiding it now. I suppose that's more of a demand than a question /foldarms Question 2 - Is gradual item decay still on the table? Obviously we've got things like the Pristine-Ruined spectrum, and the degradation of things like axes and can openers. But what about the rest of the items? I assume weather/exposure will play a role to give added benefit to things like tents/stashes. But what about, say, firearms... or jackets... or anything that degrades over time? Personally, I think this is an essential element in deconstructing the supposition of DayZ having a distinct "end-game." If one is constantly having to re-gear and/or maintain/repair gear, due to the turnover of items provided by gradual decay, then there will never be a point at which one has fully "geared."

If they were, for example, to include an anti-materiel rifle. Which would be a reversal from previous statements. That and if transparency is going to be their hallmark, might as well keep the playerbase informed. Even if they don't plan on tweaking it, which they've been receptive to in the past. I don't particularly care if they don't make it public, but I don't see any additional harm that would arise if they did, that wouldn't already (or isn't already occurring) happen.

Same thing'd happen if they just leave it as is! But if there are any serious problems/reversals from statements, we'll be able to see it and highlight it. Plus, and I can't speak for anyone else, it'd allow me to make informed judgments on it (and therefore be able to offer critique) rather than have us pissing in the wind.

Yeah, I mean the mod didn't really have that many weapon platforms when you really look at it. Folks always say "Well, you can't expect them to have every weapon under the sun in the game." Well yeah, I don't. But I expect a decent and wholesome lineup that's at least equal to that of the mod. I mean, they're going to have to put in some more NATO weapons eventually. Or else you won't see me trying for helicopter crashes just to get an M4A1 which really isn't any better (or just is categorically worse than) other assault rifles. Part of the allure for the helicopter crashes in the mod, for me at least, was the "you never know what you're going to get" factor. Could be a FAL. Could be an M240. Could be an M40. If it were just M4A1s spawning (to say nothing of other gear, like NVGs and the like), then color me uninterested.

Of course I do! Much in the same way that they have the same right not to listen to my demand at all. Try taking life less seriously, when something's ended in "/foldarms" tends to hint at the sarcastic nature of the previous statement. Meh, I don't really care that my favorite weapons might be left off the list. I just want to know what we'll be working with come 1.0, so we can make informed judgments now when changes can be made without fundamentally changing DayZ. For instance, if they were adding something like an M107 (regardless of how unlikely that is) then I'd want to know about it. The same can be said, I'm sure, if they were planning on adding whole swathes of "Western" weapons over "Eastern" weapons, I'm sure the folks who value that type of thing would want to know about that too.

From the most recent DevBlog, 25 August 2014

I mean, they consciously chose to implement/remove the weapons that were in DayZ mod. They didn't just fall out of the sky because they were re-used assets. Each weapon was a conscious addition, and leaving it in was also a conscious action (hence why things like the L85 TWS and AS50 were removed, as they were seen to upset gameplay). They've tried to place a greater emphasis on "civilian" weapons in the standalone, which I'm all for. But that doesn't mean it has to come at the cost of "military" weapons. Especially when these things can just be made rarer, not disqualified from inclusion entirely. And given what I've heard from the developers (both publicly and privately) I don't have any reason to think that assault rifles will be the cut off as to what constitutes "high-end." For one, I've heard them speak favorably about things like the PKM and FAL (therefore GPMGs and battle rifles) and they've spoken about removing the LRS from the Mosin once a dedicated sniper rifle is added. Secondly, their original lineup of weapons was to be divided into three categories "civilian," "LE/military," then "black market" or somesuch. As to whether that'll actually still be the case, we've yet to see. That, and the current weapon lineup isn't as focused toward "civilian" weapons as one might think. Largely because the divide between civilian/military weapons isn't as black and white as some would assert (I'd assert that it's not even grey, it's just bullshit, but I digress). Five of the eight handguns could possibly be classified as military/tactical. Both SMGs are pretty "military" by anyone's definition. Roughly half of the rifles (the AK-101, AKM, M4A1, and possibly SKS) are considered to be "military" rifles. Plus we've got grenades... and a ton of military gear already (see Tactical shirts, MICH helmets, Gorka-E, etc.) If anything, it's closer to a 50/50 divide. Vice a 70/30 divide in the mod.

So, here's the thing... you're setting the bar insanely low. Lower than that of the vanilla mod, much less the over-the-top mods you use in your hyperbolic example. DMRs, LMGs, GPMGs, dedicated sniper rifles, a variety of assault rifles, were all features of the vanilla mod. Which is fine by me. It's about where one draws the line, I don't draw the line at something as humble as an assault rifle (an inherently middle-of-the-road weapon, by definition). Neither do the developers, hence why the SVD is inbound... and why they've spoken positively about the PKM, FAL, and AUG... and why the current assault rifles have had their capabilities (in terms of modularity) significantly upgraded... You draw the line there, which is fine. But don't use Overwatch/Epoch as examples, when the very mod to which DayZ owes its existence had a variety of military weapons in excess of assault rifles.

You are smokin' dope. Vehicles were a common occurance in the vanilla mod. I found at least three out in the woods every 5-hour play session I had on weekends. That and people always were crying for rides in sidechat. They will be a game-changer in terms of how people congregate, move across the map, and will change the objectives of play substantially. And I suspect I'll be finding them all the more frequently now that the wilderness has been significantly marginalized (thus narrowing the possible hiding locations substantially). Personally, I don't think vehicles themselves should be overly rare. However, vehicles should be spawning in near total disrepair (because a rusting husk is useless on its own, but a chassis with four wheels and a working engine is easy to get working again)... Vehicles should have specific, not generic, repair parts (i.e. Military Offroad Engine Block, Bicycle Tire, Skoda Gas Tank, etc.)... The specific repair parts should be rarer overall (but not managed by the hive, which is a silly idea for helicopters).... Vehicles should require specific, not generic, tools to accomplish a specific repair... The specific repair parts should, for one, be more varied (i.e. Military Offroad Intake, Military Offroad Exhaust Manifold, Military Offroad Battery, etc.) and secondly should require an actual procedure (call it a mini-game for all I care) to install, vice an automatic animation... Vehicles should require gasoline as a fixed/finite/dynamically allocated resource on the server (rather than an infinite resource which was all over the map)... Do all that, and how common the vehicle spawns are won't matter. I think people, not you in particular, really have a warped view of what vehicles were in the mod. The biggest contributor to their commonality wasn't the rate at which they spawned, the overall numbers, or their locations. It was the fact that the repair parts were generic, the fact that things like gasoline were in infinite supply, and the fact that they were just plain inconsequential to operate. That and the only vehicle that was truly advantageous in terms of being able to control the map, was the helicopter. And even then, that's primarily to do with how inconsequential it was to operate (i.e. innate door-mounted machine guns with server restart spawning ammunition) offensively.

Shhhh... They'll finally learn that there's more to Chernarus than just BereNNLOLNNzino.

Right, it's like DayZ servers which don't spawn many, if any, zombies. Screw Wasteland, the rotten core of a comparison is already to be found in how some people play the effing mod to which DayZ owes its namesake.

They've said they plan on releasing bicycles first, and they're working away on vehicles! Check out the bottom bits of the latest dev hub weekly reports.

So long as there's appropriate counters to it (i.e. wire cutters/snips for wire traps, some sort of disarming mechanism for pressure traps, etc.) then I'm all for it. Definitely would have people going a bit slower into high-value loot locations and campsites, rather than the "YAAAAAH DON'T SHOOT AT ME" sprints that we do now.

Yeah, I wouldn't want boobytrapping a la "martyrdom." Definitely would be in full support of setting up boobytraps around your campsite, though. It's a gamble. Deter folks from entering, or, lose your stuff when the boobytrap goes off. That or you could also have non-explosive and/or non-lethal boobytraps.

Rage more.

So foregrips, I've personally never really had an issue with/without them. In my own personal range experience, the difference they made is negligible for me. However, I do find certain grips and foregrips more comfortable. Whether they've actually helped improve anything down-range is up for debate. However, with the KAC RIS foreguard being available for the M4A1 in DayZ, with no real discernible use (other than to attach a flashlight) I figured it might be wise to add foregrips in order to give railed foreguards (now and in the future) a wider purpose. Moreover, there are foregrips which do not require a rail, as seen here with the AMD-65 and AIMS. I'm not entirely sure as to what in-game benefit I'd want foregrips, if ever implemented (they probably should be), to have. So, here's just a random few ideas off of the top of my head. Not sold on any of them. Perhaps different foregrips could have different values/effects. Not sure I'm on board with this BF-esque approach (works fine for BF but I'm assuming some of the folks who value realism may not want it to have exorbitant benefits attached to it), but it could work if done properly. Or, they could all (or there could just be one model) do the same thing. - Decrease sway whilst on the move - Decrease ambient sway whilst still - Decrease horizontal recoil (if there is such a value in DayZ/ARMA) - Decrease vertical recoil (if there is such a value in DayZ/ARMA) Either way, I think it'd be a relatively easy (if done through railed interfaces, rather than weapon-specific foregrips) way of increasing the variety and utility in the current attachment system. Granted, there aren't that many railed weapons out there yet in DayZ (assuming the M4A1 is the only one currently). But it always struck me as odd (never mind that the MOE foreguard magically makes your weapon more accurate) that the KAC rails for the M4A1 in DayZ had no purpose other than mounting a flashlight. What are your thoughts? What would you like foregrips to do if implemented? How would you want attachments overall to be managed?

In the words of Rihanna, "Where they at, where they at, where they at?"

But, it really is. They're the same aesthetically (hence why I've posted side-by-side comparisons, often purposefully mislabeled, and nobody's been the wiser). Which is 90% of a weapon in DayZ. The damage/performance values are arbitrary, they can be whatever the developers make them. It's not as if 5.56x45 is rendered realistically from a ballistic point of view in DayZ anyhow, or 7.62x51, or any rounds at all. Saying that they'd perform differently is basing one's understanding of the two rounds on reality, when they aren't (and have never been) rendered with anything approaching absolute realism in DayZ/ARMA in the first place. There is no concept of in-depth terminal ballistics in DayZ, which is where the difference between 5.45x39 and 5.56x45 lays primarily (but not entirely). A "terminal ballistics" mechanic would have to be added before I'd even consider 5.45x39 as warranted from a "differentiation of performance" perspective. I mean, the biggest difference between 5.56x45 and 5.45x39 (neither of which were actually in ARMA II, as they were combined with magazines into one entity) in ARMA II was that one did slightly more damage than the other (3300 for 5.56x45 when fired out of an M4A1, and 2722 for 5.45x39 when fired out of an AK-74). So, it's not as if there's anything special about 5.45x39 in particular, because the values assigned to it in-game are arbitrary. And, I'd agree that they (the AK-101 and AK-74M) could be made different from one another... but the AKM (7.62x39) and AK-101 (5.56x45) are just as equally different from one another anyhow. Thus, the same idea is expressed. I don't necessarily think the AK-101 should have more common ammunition than NATO rifles, that is the place of the AKM (7.62x39). My point is that we've already got two rounds with which to balance loot rarity for assault rifles, obviously there will be overlap/exceptions (see the CZ 527). However, 5.45x39 is not needed to balance ammunition rarity. Is it welcome? Sure! Would it add a bit of depth to the ammo rarity? You bet. Do I want it added? Again, yes. Should the developers add it? Sure, why not! Is it necessary for them to add it? No. 7.62x39 should be the common-uncommon round supplying the common-uncommon Warsaw Pact/Eastern weapons (i.e. AKM, RPK, <insert SBR AK here>, CZ 527, etc.) 5.56x45 should be the uncommon-rare round supplying NATO assault rifles (i.e. M4A1, Steyr AUG, G36, etc.) Boom, tiered differentiation. We've already got a 7.62x39 AK right? So what difference does it make in having the other AK chambered in 5.56x45, if it's rarer than the AKM? Other than "likelihood" I might add. Outside of those two, 5.45x39 doesn't really serve any distinct purpose. Unless it's divvied up into 5.45x39 [common], 7.62x39 [uncommon], 5.56x45 [rare]. Which I would absolutely prefer. But it's not necessary to add 5.45x39 as one has (and can, with the CZ 527) appropriate 7.62x39 for common weapons. Like I said, there's going to be some overlap. I don't particularly think the AK-101, or any assault rifle for that matter, warrants being super rare (as it's matched in every way by the AKM currently), so there's a bit of a conflict there. Much in the same way that there's somewhat of a conflict in having the CZ 527 firing an assault rifle round (thereby forcing them to spawn assault rifle ammunition in residential areas).

But you measure the worth of DayZ by the degree to which it adheres to "realism." If it doesn't, you uncompromisingly decry it as streamlined/casual, curse the developers for somehow betraying you, and then push vitriol-laced tirades at the mere mention of something included which isn't typical of a former Soviet state. So, if STALKER (including this mod) is neither realistic in its depiction of an apocalypse, nor realistic in its depiction of a post-Soviet state, nor realistic in its depiction of weapons, then how... by your continuously stated (so don't try and say that you don't believe in them) standards... can it ever be good/acceptable? Again, it's a contradiction.

Eh, I think that there needs to be some method of deterring entry that actually requires dedicated time/risk/effort to circumvent. If every yahoo with a fireaxe or firearm can get into my base, I won't make a base (unless, of course, stealth/hiding is actually viable) because there'd be no point to doing so. Which is why I think we need two types of items (well three, but I'll skip the "Temporary Barricading" category)... 1. Concealment, Cover, and Impediment Items - These items can be overcome by everybody, and are not primarily designed to keep people out of your base. They're designed to give you defensible positions, to conceal your movements whilst in the base, and to slow the advance of attackers. - Examples a. Fencing (Chain-link, Wood, Corrugated Metal, Reinforced Steel) - Able to be climbed/scaled by the player (akin to RDR) - Provide various levels of cover and concealment b. Sandbags/HESCO Bastions - Able to be vaulted by the player - Provide a defensible position from which to defend c. Tank Traps/Concertina Wire - Able to be defeated with various tools (sledgehammer and wire cutters respectively) - Able to stop vehicles and players, forcing them to clear the obstacles 2. Area/Entry Denial Items - These items require a dedicated counter-item, and are designed to keep people out of your base - Examples a. Door (Wood [common], Hardened Wood [uncommon], Corrugated Metal [rare], Steel [extremely rare]) - Designed to outright stop a player from entering a building (assume all doors are deadbolted from the inside) - Provides various levels of resistance against damage - Able to be destroyed via the use of a dedicated item (crowbar [common], fireaxe [uncommon], firearms [rare], and thermal lance/welding kit respectively [extremely rare]) b. Locks (Doorknob [common], Padlock [uncommon], Heavy Padlock [rare], High Security Padlock [extremely rare]) - Designed to provide another layer of protection to doors - Able to be destroyed via the use of a dedicated item (sledgehammer [uncommon], breaching round [rare], bolt cutters [rare], breaching charge [extremely rare]) - The threshold of rarity in counters is higher for locks, owing to the fact that you already have a door denying entry. I'm sure there's some inaccuracies (as I'm sure a breaching charge would probably be best served in other applications] but you get what I mean.

All of the same weapons in vanilla STALKER (including the Gauss Rifle), just with more attachments available to them. Plus you've got the good ol' UMP-45, FAMAS, and XM8. And last I checked, the FAL couldn't mount a SUSAT... nor could a SIG 550...