Zero477

DayZ is a balance between a simulation and a game. With the cold levels I think we have enough simulation mechanics, I'd rather see more gameplay mechanics.

Playing like a Survivor is incentivised by the bandit skin system, this is a given. If Rocket were to do away with this system there would indeed be nothing holding people back from playing DayZ like a team deathmatch or even worse betraying other people for their gear. When someone is wearing a bandit skin it should be clear that they're out to get you. This is not a problem, they make the game more exciting for everyone. The problem is that surviving isn't incentivised and that a bandit is forced into the bandit playstyle of shoot on sight or get shot on sight.

The firestation up north has no better loot than the others. Drops as always luck based, the advantage of NW Airfield is that there's just a lot of spawns. If you found the same stuff as you would find in barns you got really unlucky, the two go off different loot tables and the chance of getting the same stuff is small. NW Airfield is one of the most camped area's in the game. Be extremely cautious and don't go there at night (especially not on hc servers) for some people have night vision goggles. My favorite place to get good loot is Elektro, it has two firestations that are relatively safe. Often there's calls in chat if people are near and the danger you face from snipers almost exclusively comes from the sniper nests (fire a sniper round outside of those nests and you're quickly swarmed by zombies). The market in Elektro has a lot of "residential" loot spawns, making it the best place to loot a tent. In my opinion tents are absolutely essential, it's no good going on a looting spree without a place to stash it. Elektro is a hot zone but in my experience people are learning to value their humanity. If you're a survivor you have a ton of possible allies whereas at NWA people are more high strung and less trusting of their fellow survivors. Even if another survivor decides to trust you his greed might just get the better of him. All in all I prefer Elektro if only for the higher presence of other players. NE Airfield is another place you can check out. It's less populated and there's a chopper spawn there. It's a less long walk and on the way there you pass a hospital, a market and an office building with "office" loot that is near guaranteed to be empty. Here's a sheet that will give you some more information on what spawns where: http://picacid.com/arma2/loot_en.html Finally DayZmod.info is a great place to gather information such as tips, tutorials, maps and the like.

Double tap control works fine for me. But why would I want to lower my weapon?

The sadistic side of me yearns for such options. Poison a waterbottle or piece of meat and leave it lying around, either to kill or knock someone out. Incapacitate someone with non lethal poison, a choke hold or a non lethal weapon. Tap your incapicitated victims blood for improvised blood bags, force him to eat meat and tap his blood again. Sneak up to someone and put a primed IED in his backpack. Group up with some players, make a campfire and offer them your poisoned meat after they eat it slowly start dropping hints on your intentions. The suspense would be marvellous.

Sadistic fun! I honestly wouldn't mind losing a character (no matter how geared) over a creative SAW-esque plot like being forced to race another player for the right to live. Or being captured by a group of survivors and forced to eat 30 cans of canned beans whilst they go on about justice for their fallen comrades. These kind of unusual experiences stick with me more.

Whilst realistic for the individual a complete removal of humanity without giving thoughtless murder a consequence is bad for the game. It's bad for balance. If you look at the larger picture no humanity is actually bad for realism because it undermines cooperation completely. No humanity DayZ only worked because its playerbase was already deep into the simulation genre and the community was small enough. That doesn't change how the simple fact of being able to kill without consequence by betraying trust in a game like this is not a good game design pattern (anti fun), it only works if a large majority of the players is in the simulation mindset of playing. The simulation actually becomes more accurate if you give an anti fun deed a fitting consequence. The severity of taking a real life through means of betrayal can not be simulated, so instead of trying that a better approach would be to make it less feasible for players to betray people. What I like about the humanity system is how it gave the game a fair system of PvP. PvP in itself is a fun game mechanic that makes the game more interesting for every party involved. The problem with it is that it's too much of a black and white solution, a system was created that perpetuates a single choice by making it always in the players best interest to kill the other "faction". Another problem is that the system prevents bandits from playing cooperatively without a group. Remove humanity and it will be like everyone has a bandit skin on. There's too much people who aren't in the "simulation mindset" and make choices with short terms gameplay benefit (loot, thrill of the kill, survival) as a first priority and realistic simulation as a second. The balance of trust spirals out of control quickly. After how many times of getting your trust betrayed will you start shooting everyone on sight? The people who like playing DayZ more as a simulation than a game end up paying for it because the way they play offers low chance of survival, unless they're playing CoD with zombies simulator.

May have found a bug. Picked up a crossbow earlier, twice in a row I was unable to retrieve my bolt after taking a zombie down with a headshot. I was informed that this problem only occurs with bodyshots.

It is a sad thing to see a brother lose all honor. Where is the sport? Change your ways I say! Bring back the sport! Regain your honor! Become a legend! I never said the sport has to be fair, nor considerate. The next time you lure a victim walk with him for a while, sit down by a campfire amd share some cooked meat. Share stories about good times, about how you love the taste of cooked meat. You sure love the taste of cooked meat. Mention how it reminds you of the last time you went hiking with a buddy, a shame he went missing. Oh such a shame. Offer him another piece and another and another. It would be rude for him to refuse now wouldn't it? Abrubtly stop the campfire and continue the hike, catch him offguard and force him to surrender his weapons at gunpoint (direct chat helps). Give him 20 seconds to run, let the hunt begin.

It restores too much blood for the effort required to get it once you have assembled a knife and matches. It allows survivors and bandits who venture off far to the north to sustain themselves through almost anything making cooperation and bloodpacks obsolete. Besides that eating yourself back to 12k blood in one minute is extremely unrealistic. Rather than touch the amount of blood restored by eating cooked meat I suggest limiting the amount of food you can take in at one time. Put a cooldown on eating after taking in two food items. Or better yet incorporate a change to the hunger system that prevents players from abusing cooked meat health regeneration. Such a change serves both realism and gameplay.

Yes. It simplifies the moral choices you make to just one, bandit or survivor. Replace humanity with trust and allow players to put on a disguise (like a headwrap). Trust is gained by killing disguised players or bloodfaced* players. Once you put on a disguise you don't lose or gain trust. Trust is lost by killing undisguised players. When you have low trust you get a visual indicator like a bloody zombie face. Putting on or taking off the headwrap takes 10 minutes to prevent abuse. What you look like directly reveals your intentions.

You have a point, the sheep just stand there smiling while I fill them with rounds.

It would be cool to have some sort of crafting system in DayZ. Survival and improvisation go hand in hand, I think it would be very fitting. In terms of mechanics and gameplay it could be a really interesting addition and even solve some problems with consistency like small towns not being worth a damn. Possible craftable items: *Molotov coctail. *Bandages. *Traps. *Schrapnel bombs/pipe bombs. *Zombie bait. *Zombie deterrent. *Tent. *Wire fence. *Camouflage.

Daytime at Berezino, my first time so far north. I'm in a Russian server so the locals are unfamilliar to me, as a bandit I wonder "how do these players react to seeing a bandit?". I figure there's a good chance I'm alone here. I've gotten quite thirsty from travelling and I'm all out of drinks, scurrying around town I locate a market. Apart from an Alice backpack there's nothing there for me, bummer. I head back in town, realising that I'm near the only hospital in apart from the ones at noobcoast I decide to loot it despite feeling a little pressured for time by my thirst. At the hospital I'm faced with a problem, I don't have a weapon capable of breaking the glass, luckily I remember that sometimes there's med boxes on top of the hospital. I loot one on top of the hospital, 5 blood bags! Great! As I finish looting I level my view again, suddenly a survivor armed with a sniper rifle standing at two o' clock on the very same roof. Scare of my life. He's not moving, I realise he's in the process of spawning. I get behind him, I'm panicking a little. I vowed to die before losing more humanity and I have no idea how this guy will react or if he even speaks English. I think about pranking him and open his Alice bag, I see two cokes pop up, take them and close the bag. He moves a little and go into prone position. I still don't have a clue what to do aiming at his head I briefly consider taking the shot, I see him slowly turning around and I Alt F4 the hell out of there. I despise people who abuse server mechanics like DC and server hopping for loot. I've never done it before, this one time I think I can forgive myself.

On the subject of the tent getting eaten by the server. Is this only a one time risk? Meaning you set it up and if it survives the first day you can safely store your stuff? Or is there a persistent risk of losing the tent?

Betrayal is an act which weight can not be simulated in an online game. Betrayal is easy, brings great profit and does not carry a consequence. By bringing in a consequence that matches the act you bring more resemblance to a realistic society. In my suggestion making a habit of betraying people would make you a social outcast. The disadvantage you get from making the morally wrong choice reflects the gravity of your choice and gives it more weight. Realistically trust between survivors would be a given. That bond of trust gets tested when there's loot involved.

Why is this a problem? You shouldn't be force to sit at the back of the bus just because of the way you look. TKJ You should if you go up to people pretending to be friendly and shoot them in the face from close range, even if it's only until you gain back humanity.

I must admit I started by playing DayZ as a "COD kiddie". When I started playing the amount of new players was staggering, I didn't know much about humanity or bandits. With the shitty gear I had I tried cooperating, three times in a row I got killed for it. It was noobcoast central. Then finally I got a kill of my own, somebody opened fire but I won the shootout. I proudly took his beans and makarov ammo. I found out that Elektro had great loot and guns, I also found out that being there and trying to do anything cooperatively ends up in death. Thus began my spree of rushing to the loot, the more loot I found the more itchy my triggerfinger, I didn't want to lose it all. Now I'm a bandit and everywhere I go I get shot on sight. If I don't kill on sight or avoid players altogether I'm taking a huge risk, I don't want to kill on sight outside of towns. I don't want to be forced in this soloist playstyle. My humanity is at -30000, extremely hard to get rid of. I recall a journey I made from Cherno to Elektro, twice in a row survivors opened fire on me, twice in a row I killed them despite wanting no trouble. That alone dropped my humanity by 5k. The bandit system is a slippery slope and kind of unforgiving. I have a suggestion to improve it. Give players the choice to disguise their identity by changing into the bandit skin (or just the headwrap). Killing a bandit grants humanity but a bandit does not get a humanity penalty for killing survivors or a humanity bonus for killing other bandits. However, if you kill a survivor while you don't have the bandit disguise on you lose humanity. Low humanity makes your normal undisguised face look like the "zombie 2" face. As a result there can be more trust under survivors and it's easier to play the role of bandit (which is needed to keep the tension on for everyone) without getting punished for it by losing trust. If you play like a spineless wimp and abuse people their trust you will be marked for it.