Katana67

Meh, it's a toss-up. If you stay on the coast (in the mod) you're obviously going to encounter a shitload of people. But with mid-low population servers, I rarely encounter people when I'm up north. I want that whole experience where you seldom encounter people. But at the same time, I don't want to be completely unconcerned about people. For instance, in my first playthrough, I camped out at this barn near Myshkino which I mention a lot. I threw flares along the perimeter and actually patrolled it in the middle of the night, thinking that players would actually be a threat. But nobody ever came in three or four hours. Later on, after playing a lot, did I realize that that patrolling was pretty useless in terms of encountering folks.

Now if only they could work on them grass textures... /sigh

I feel like taking a nap all of the time! Am I playing DayZ? Is this real life?

"breadcrumb. where the zombie looses direct line of sight, they can follow where the player went. this is mostly employed inside buildings. This allows the zombie to be smarter in negotiating obstacles because they use what the player did" - rocket2guns I get that this is just describing how it works technically, but what are the criteria for losing a zombie's aggro in a building then? If it's not based upon LOS, do the zombies lose aggro and go into "alerted" mode? Will they just search the general area? I think there may be a possible downside to their treatment of zombies. They seem to be trying to streamline (rightfully so) the zombies, while at the same time not leaving much room for additional behavior. I hope they change how aggro works with regard to sounds, so that a zombie or group of zombies will hear a noise (but do not have LOS) and will rush to investigate the general area and more or less loiter around trying to find the player. Would encourage the player to either be mobile or stealthy.

Can you not have thoughts like this?

I think they might've just added an intermediate walk animation, rather than having them always be at either loiter, or FULL SPRINT RAWR!

I'm sorry, but having a "quick experience" isn't within the auspices of DayZ and never has been. The old adage, "forest running simulator" comes to mind. Nothing's stopping you from exploring, but there will be hindrances and consequences. That and DayZ is what you make of it, if you only have 20 minutes to spend on the game then you're going to have to play within the confines of that time. The game itself shouldn't be dictated as such. I don't think making myself vulnerable to eat something is a trivial experience, in fact it's a very significant experience which could lead to my character's death.

I think that thinking of things in terms of "realism" is a bit misleading. I personally like the "item in-hand" mechanic, but would attribute any encumbrance to the interface rather than the spirit of the inclusion. It provides for a lot more than you'd expect, like not being able to easily shove food into your character's mouth whilst in a firefight, or requiring a player to fall back to shove a morphine injector into their thigh/wherever it goes.

But that polish is still lacking in an Alpha where said systems aren't even implemented yet. Regardless, I was just using it to make a point. "Polish" is a very vague term. EDIT - There I fixed it :D

"Yes, expectations haven't been met. But frankly, you haven't paid for it so beyond an apology (which I'm tired of giving), I have no idea what is actually required to finally put that issue to rest" - rocket2guns Like I said, even Rocket recognizes the landscape of the community will change once people start purchasing a product. I'm not saying that the inclusions/systems themselves won't be acceptable, but Rocket's reasoning for dismissing any critique will no longer be sound. He'll be beholden to a community which has purchased a product, which he's obliged to develop from an Alpha state. His reasoning will have to evolve from "It's a placeholder" to "We're working on a replacement". In other words, the fact that it's unreleased will no longer apply. Alpha state only (supposedly, in logical folk) is supposed to indicate a lack of polish, an evolving development, and the "test" nature of the game. But it does not act as a shield against critique. People always dismiss things as "Oh, well it's an Alpha". When things are just swept under the rug and not attended to.

I don't... and I was saying the reasoning for his excuses will no longer fly. /facepalm

Which is why I think people, including myself to an extent, come to misinterpret the videos that Dean releases. Even with all the disclaimers, people tend to look at it as a "state of the game" indicator. Whereas Rocket, I think, would be best served by having these videos purposefully demonstrate or show off certain things, rather than just being random gameplay. Because people tend to view this as a relatively comprehensive look into the game, and then say "Well, still doesn't look good". They've done this in the past to an extent, but it's always been punctuated by other unfinished stuff. If everything is about performance, fluidity, and the back-end, then why do we even need to see un-edited video of stuff that's unfinished? It does more harm than good in my opinion. I appreciate the videos, but again would rather have more regimented DevBlogs like we used to. I certainly don't fault Rocket for not doing them, as he's said multiple times that it would eat into development time. But, and I'm sure he does, he's going to realize that after release... and people have paid for it... none of this shit will fly anymore. Nor should it. Placeholder animations are going to become "shitty animations" real quick. Which is why I am completely understanding of why it's taken as long as it has to get to where they are now. But they need a very, very, aggressive development roadmap if they're going to be successful in my opinion.

All I can ask for, much appreciated.

Can somebody do me a solid and ask Rocket on Reddit (if he's still replying) whether or not controller functionality is retained from ARMA 2? I can't be bothered to register right now.

1. This is probably just a matter of animating, but I'm not sure they have this planned (i.e. a stagger animation, or anything reactionary) 2. Rocket wasn't exactly sneaking (he was running around like a clown) so I would take that into account with regard to aggro, plus he said the aggro was being worked on regardless

Meh, I'm sure they're all nice folks but, from what I can pick up, the majority of the people I've seen with keys never really posted much with regard to the enrichment of the community/mod. Not to say that they didn't ever or that they didn't/don't post a lot, but I can only really count on one hand how many I've actually held conversations with on the forum, but that's just me talkin'. That and I never understood the whole worship of and preference given to streamers and Youtubers (this may be unrelated, as I'm pretty sure they haven't been given keys, at least widely. I could be way off). I've spoken about this before, so I won't go into a rant. But I feel that there are/were people who contributed/contribute a lot (specifically on the forums) who go unrecognized. I took a fairly long break from the forums and DayZ a while back, and came back to a largely dissimilar population so those people might not even be around anymore. We'll all be playing SA sooner or later, so it doesn't really matter. We might actually be better off, not having to wade through the bullshit of pre-alpha.

Again, just going off the information available. Would much rather critique current circumstance and offer alternatives based upon that than just speculate about how it'll be. That, and the only reason I bring up the idea of the "floating loot problem being something that we'll just have to deal with" is more just born out of my experience with the mod. There were a lot of seemingly small things wrong with the mod, that were either overlooked or not a priority (loot placement being one of them, along with a few others including fall damage, vehicle damage, and other misplaced world items) It wasn't so much that it was neglect, it's just that it was not deemed a priority because other things were being done. Plus, I have no idea of how this problem would be solved. Is it a matter of tailoring the loot spawns themselves to match the location/surface where they're spawning? I would assume that this would have to be adjusted for each item.

I like how they now have a kind of close-range walking animation now, rather than always running at full sprint, yeah.

"Mosin with scope and bayonet is probably one of the coolest items in game currently (there are two scopes for it in game now)" - rocket2guns /fap "I spent a year on and off trying to make the zombies work, experimenting with different scripts. In the end I came to the same conclusion you discuss here. In making individual zombies a threat, you actually make these very frustrating situations. The game becomes very black and white. But by making zombies "manageable", that means that generally with the zombies you are okay. But if you don't have a good plan - you get in deep trouble. That's what we are aiming for" - rocket2guns This is a good approach, but that doesn't mean individual zombies should be child's play. They should aggro more zombies, or something, to make individual zombies less of a nuisance unto themselves.

Right, and my original bit was just critiquing how they look while they're attacking. I think the solution is fairly simple, and could go a long way in making the zombies more convincing. This pretty much answers my critique "Agro is a bit broken at the moment, as they can hear most damage. But it's very early days for zombie behavior" - rocket2guns. But it's been that way for quite some time, and that's all we have to go on. That's been muddled with my own desire to have individual zombies be a threat (proportionally). Just like in "The Walking Dead" when one zombie totally screws them over. For what it's worth, we haven't even seen the zombies running inside, even in a buggy state. Still would like to see that.

That's fair, but at some point we and they are going to have to decide what is a placeholder and what is final. I'm just going off what I'm seeing. That and perhaps I should've rephrased. Zombies should be a threat both as a group and as individuals, but it should obviously be proportional. However, I was more keying in on making them both a threat and threatening. Having them look like idiots takes away from how I view them, which is as I do in the mod, as a nuisance. If they look like they can actually hit me, then I'll be far more likely to treat them as a threat. Now, from what I can tell, they still don't really have a sense of where the player is while they're attacking.

I do have a question about the floating loot though... Do you think that no matter what they do or how marginalized the problem is, that this might be one of those problems that we'll always have to deal with? I mean, loot placement in the mod has never been stellar. Is it by virtue of it not being a priority or it being a relatively simple fix? I never got the impression with the engine that it handled object interaction very well.

That's not really a "set in stone" type of thing, as it's an idea of how a fictional being is supposed to behave. Rocket has commented on the nature of their hearing and eyesight, other than that, they're just infected human beings. Regardless, that's not really how it looks in-game. It doesn't look like they're stumbling about trying to get at you, but don't have the capability. They're just playing a fixed animation without any sense of the player's movements. They're already zombies, why make them dumber? I want my zombies to be both convincing, and a threat. And, for what it's worth, when I look at the footage again the zombies rarely are facing in the same direction as the player. So it's a matter of tightening the zombies up or making the player less janky/mobile. I'd rather the former.

One (hopefully easy to implement) thing that would help make zombies feel more visceral and believable... Have them lock on to and track the player to an extent, when they enter into the attack animation. That way when the player scurries away, the zombies aren't swiping at nothing, but are swiping at the player or in their direction.

I would cry.