Katana67

Unfortunately they don't really post any patch notes on experimental. And even the ones they post for stable are (purposefully or accidentally) incomplete most of the time. It's all just about how we, as members of the community, piece together the sparse information on the sources you mention. It's a bummer, I know, and I'm not 100% sure I agree with the reasoning used by the developers (i.e. it takes too much time to post patch notes for an evolving experimental hive). But I get it.

That's sort of why I chose my "shooting sticks" approach, as it is (in my opinion) the approach which is the "easiest" to implement in terms of development. The items to craft it are already there. It's a player-deployed item which doesn't require a reworking of surfaces (a la BF). And it only requires two marginally tweaked stances (perhaps a different animation if they want to include horizontal rotation) just to match the kneeling or standing positions with shooting sticks.

One thing that a lot of people forget, is that tents may not be the main unit of storage anymore. Backpacks, as per developer comments, are the first items slated to become persistent. So, while tents were easy to spot in the mod, backpacks will (ostensibly, being smaller physically) be harder to spot overall. One could make the argument that because of this, the requirement for "wilderness" is lessened given that one no longer needs a lot of space to hide a stash. This argument doesn't take into account, as has been mentioned, the later inclusion of vehicles (which could also be helped with the oft-suggested camouflage netting) and player structures. EDIT - LOL at all the people saying "there's enough forest already." Takes me about an hour to scour the entire western woodlands in the mod, and another hour to scour the entire northern woods after that. That's on foot too! And those are the most prodigious woods we've got so far! And the latter has been shrunk noticeably to make way for larger towns in the Standalone.

I'd rather have the loot rebalanced to place relevance on the inland regions of Chernarus, the zombie numbers upped in the coastal cities to make them suicidal for a newspawn, and the rewarding loot pushed inland again. Rather than having people spawn closer to high-value loot or player-created structures.

Marginally sure the majority of them are helicopters and/or boats.

There are a lot of factors that weigh in on how I feel about DayZ/ARMA's shooting. Chief amongst which, is the RAMPANT use of graphics settings to gain a distinct advantage in-game. ATOC, Gamma, FOV, etc. All features which people cite as "core to the PC experience" blindly without taking into consideration the very real and tangible detriments to gameplay. I like that it's hard to spot players, but when people are on a tilted playing field just through turning off something as inane as ATOC, it ruins the experience for me. Second, is the character movement. I can't really describe it, other than to say it's clunky. I still (this is insanely controversial) say that CoD has the best movement and point-shooting mechanic out there. Pure and simple, it works, it's snappy, and it's WYSIWYG. I haven't played CoD since MW2, so don't act as if I'm some insane fanboy... prease. I'm not saying DayZ should have, or needs, a movement/shooting system like CoD. I'm merely using it as a counter-example. Somewhere in the middle I'd imagine is where it needs to be (this also doesn't take into account the ballistics simulation of DayZ/ARMA which I like). When I'm doing drills on the range, I'm not fumbling over my own feet just to engage a target, it's quick. So I'm not entirely sure ARMA is any more realistic in terms of movement and aiming than anything else. Third, is just some of the odd quirks of Alpha. Such as the inclusion of "spread" at odd distances/rates, and the damage of certain weapons (mainly the M4). Fourth, is the "out of breath sway." I'm not having a seizure when I run 100m and shoot at something in the real world. Again, might be better as-is for pragmatic gameplay reasons, but it sure is annoying to have to wait for my character to calm down just to shoot something at 50m in-game. Forgot to add a fifth, metagaming. The use of TS to relay positions post mortem to your massive clan. Ghosting. All that jazz.

One, there aren't. Two, even if there are "plenty of fucking forests" the majority of them are immediately adjacent or on-the-way-to a high-value attraction. This is a 24-hour path map from the mod, which has considerably fewer high-value loot spawns and an untouched north. Even here, the north and western woods are trafficked. Extrapolate the effects of new towns and cities in the north in the Standalone, and the pathways across the map become distributed across previously "wild" areas which weren't actually all that "wild" to begin with. Three, the northern woods have been marginalized considerably (see above and compare with Chernarus+).

http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/185396-save-the-trees-man-marginalized-wilderness/

Stop playing. Play something else and/or play the mod. Then try some new stuff out in the latest patch, and stop playing. Whilst I don't like the term "endgame", as I think it should be a constant endeavor rather than a fixed point in time, DayZ (in its current state, which is alpha to be fair) is sorely lacking in activities.

They seem intent on adding Zelenogorsk/Pustoshka-sized towns, all of the towns they've added so far in the north (Svetlojarsk, Kamanovka [sic?], and Novy Polana [sic? again]) are very substantial. They rival most towns in terms of significance. In fact, I'm pretty sure one of them is the only place outside of the airfields and large cities to have a firestation.

Yes, the system doesn't "prevent server hopping" at all. Unless they put INSANELY quick respawn timers on loot, which I HIGHLY doubt they will (and I don't want them to), swapping servers will remain the most expedient and risk-free way to gather loot. If anything, it may ENCOURAGE server hopping by increasing the relative chance that a server will have loot at any given point (regardless of whether it was looted before or not). Whereas before, servers which were looted stayed empty. Never mind that loot respawns don't mitigate the lack of risk in simply moving to an unpopulated server to loot. Which is the MAIN ATTRACTOR TO SERVER HOPPING. This is by no means a fix to server hopping... at all. It will however, remove the requirement for servers to restart every few hours (ostensibly, as this was still done in the mod with respawning loot in order to hasten the process and/or reset the server as it got laggy the longer it was up).

These are the areas that appear to be marked for the placement of a city, if not already containing a new town/city (such as Svetlojarsk). http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/185396-save-the-trees-man-marginalized-wilderness/

Thanks! I kind of like it just as a humble radio installation. Although I did leave that sort of open to interpretation in the timeline I put out.

I have a few spare mag springs laying around. But yeah, I do agree that there's a lot of hogwash about compressed springs wearing out. But in my experience, it is true. Could be due to my PMAG, as I hear the early springs have feeding issues. But it's happened on every mag I've stored full since owning a firearm. Still anecdotal, but I don't personally store my mags full for this reason.

But if server hopping were fixed/remedied, then it'd just be a rare-ass magazine, which is what I want for rare-ass weapons. Putting them in the same loot makes rare weapons less rare overall, through the inclusion of their magazines (and possibly ammo).

So they shouldn't include various loot because it encourages server hopping? Again, remedy server hopping, and such concerns are rendered irrelevant. The loot in-game will never be wholly realistic, ever. The player isn't finding magazines for more than two, hopefully, weapons at a time (because that's all he/she can prudently carry) so no, it wouldn't be a mess. Because the player is only concerned with finding a few types of magazines at a time, no matter how many types they add. Was this way in the mod once they made mag and weapon spawns less likely, although the magazines were easier to find overall. I'm for things that are fun to me, like having to scrounge for a weapon, ammo, and magazines as separate entities. Rather than having the whole damn thing served up to me on a silver platter.

Sounds great! Having to actually scrounge for rare magazines for my rare rifle sounds to be a great way of actually balancing the weapon in terms of (again) rarity. Not to mention it's fun to be searching for rare loot, magazines included. And to you... who worships "appropriate" weapons, over "tacticool" weapons, why do you want us folks with railed SCARs and M4s to have an easier time of maintaining our weapons? Which would be the case if they spawned with magazines.

I mean my first PMAG that I used to store loaded started to feed improperly after a year or so of sitting in a gun cabinet. Replaced the spring and it fed fine. Had the same happen with standard USGI mags. I started storing mine either empty, or with 5-15 rounds in.

I've never dropped an M4 for a Mosin. I suspect the main reason that people do, is that the Mosin can mount the LRS, and deals more damage, and is more accurate. I'm not sure that's the reality, or even a prevalent reality. It's just as anecdotal as my example. I've never had an issue finding magazines for anything other than the FNX. They're everywhere.

I'm okay with them spawning without mags, makes looting a bit more of a challenge. I'd be more in favor of it if magazines spawned empty, but they don't. So maybe further down the line. Many firearm owners don't store their magazines loaded, as it can wear out the springs. I know I don't store my AR magazines fully loaded, or loaded at all. It's fun trying to scrounge ammo and find magazines. Getting your weapon up to snuff is a puzzle, and I like that. Yet another example of a so-called "unrealistic" example making for more interesting gameplay.

I don't really have an issue with them increasing the overall number of military spawns, but I do have an issue with their placement. Specifically with regard to the ones at Balota, Pavlovo, and Zelenogorsk being just as rewarding as the ones at NWAF. That and there's no distinguishable gap, really between the loot that spawns in police stations and the loot that spawns at military bases. There is a smaller gap, if any as many could argue the supremacy of the Mosin, between so-called "civilian" and "military" items. I'll leave that type of analysis until they actually get around to balancing the loot spawns. But, as a principle, I don't think having military spawns south of Zelenogorsk and/or Pustoshka is a good idea.

Seeing as military spawns cover a good chunk of the map now, it's more likely than you might think. Anywhere on the western side is a quick jog to any number of military bases (Balota, Zelenogorsk, Veresnik/Dichina, NWAF).

So how does that jive with your assertion that spawns should be random? People won't be migrating anywhere if they spawn near military spawns. I don't want everyone in the west any more than I want everyone in the east along the coast. Both need to have an attraction. They should be different attractions as well. But everywhere needs to have a reason to be populated. My ideal DayZ map would have the coast be too difficult for newspawns to handle (in terms of danger) as to force them inland to gear up, then having them travel back and forth between the coast and inland to maintain their gear.

The one thing that I've always missed, and I hinted at this in my "Save The Trees" thread, is the wilderness being fairly boring. It used to be just a vague colonnade of trees on top of a boring heightmap. Now, I think they've made some good headway (especially in the north). There's no some cool rock formations, more imaginative groves of trees and treelines. But the rest of the woods needs to be given some unique features. Rock formations, waterfalls, creeks, vernal pools, natural formations. I think this is better, in the context of the wilderness, than adding man-made stuff. I'm not sure I'd be in support of certain things (like bunkers) as unique items in the woods, but maybe an isolated cabin or two would be awesome. I'd also like to see more mountains. They've flattened the north so that there are no more large hills and mountains.

I used to partake in it myself, and am an avid listener of ganja reggae (not that it matters)! Most of my friends are former marijuana enthusiasts! I no longer have a desire to smoke largely due to my future job prospects, and my friends are all in the military, so self-explanatory there. I totally get where you're coming from, my grievance is solely with the people you mention... who do it just to seem cool.