Shazz (DayZ)

Hey guys, I've been playing this mod now for a couple of weeks and it is without a doubt one of the most unique and compelling ideas I have ever seen. When I first saw the "average life expectacy: 32 minutes" on the page I thought "Pfft, noobs" and then proceeded to die in about 32 seconds on my first avatar. Hearing gunshots in the distance has never been so electrifying in any other game, nor has the scope of the world ever been approached in a game like this. With all that positive stuff being said, however, my friends and I have been compiling a list of suggestions that we feel would make the game more interesting and hopefully address what we perceive as some issues. I have read some of these ideas in other posts or talking in passing with other players about them but decided to compile them here to 5 main points. Several of these ideas relate to one another and I'll try to point these out. 1.) Ammo Scarcity As it stands, there is no ammo scarcity. Go into any barn and find a Winchester with 15-30 rounds. Paw through Cherno or Electro and you'll wind up passing up so many bits of ammo because your inventory is completely full. At one point I had just respawned a new character and had a Lee Enfield with 50 rounds within 30 minutes. This problem I believe stems from two things. First, I don't believe that currently ammo can spawn in any capacity other than full. Continuing with the Winchester example, if I see one on the ground with 2 sets of shells near it, I am guaranteed 30 rounds. Ideally, each "drop" should contain an extremely low amount of ammo. If I see a Winchester with 2 sets of ammo next to it, I should realistically get 2-4 rounds. Secondly, not enough targets. Even if ammo was made really scarce, all that you're changing is to make it take longer to stockpile, not truly making it scarce. More zombies, zombies that take more shots, heavy zombie concentrations around better loot areas, etc. could all have a bearing on this. The ideal scenario is that you would be almost forced to expend ammo to have a chance to gain it. Obviously stealth should still have a role, especially in smaller towns where new people who don't have weapons need to get started, but it shouldn't negate the need to engage zombies completely. Different types of zombies could be tied in here as well, so zombies in military grade gear areas could be a lot more aggressive / intelligent / stealth detecting. 2.) Military Grade Gear I very strongly feel that most of the military gear has no place in the current game, especially things like the DMR or L85. Why? Several reasons. First, it focuses player activity around certain areas. Rather than organically running into people and utilizing the full world, almost all of the players are centered around one of about four places. This encourages what has been referred to as "DeathMatching" in several other threads which, I think we can all agree, is not the point of the mod. Killing for no reason than "lulz I have a sniper rifle and I'm bored" is overall bad for the game because it discourages new people. This could partly be resolved by making gear spawning less deterministic in location. There are plenty of towns that have no military gear spawn chance that are completely ignored. A guy who lives down the street from me in real life has a working AK47, so I don't think it is too far a stretch to think that gear should be more randomized. This could be further enhanced by having a diminishing returns on gear spawn rate - if there's a 10% chance of something spawning originally, it goes down by 1% per hour where a player is in the area and back up by 1% when there is not. The goal is to encourage whole map usage and multiple locations. Secondly, it enters MMO style "gear rushing". Things such as the L85 or Night Vision Goggles are simply better in every respect than their alternatives. There is no reason to find a clever use for road flares or chem lights or flashlights or anything like that - just rush the NVG spawn until you find some and you're set forever. Which is truly a shame, because night time play without them is an experience I haven't found anywhere else. For contrast, a Makarov has common ammunition but poor damage compared to a 1911. A Lee Enfield has proper iron sights for better long range shooting, but a Winchester is quieter and has a larger magazine size. These are weapons with tradeoffs. Thirdly, things such as the DMR or L85 don't promote what I believe the game is about - realistic survival. A semi automatic sniper rifle one hit kill / thermal optics assault rifle is not an anti zombie weapon or a self defense weapon or even a hunting weapon - it's a player killing weapon. And not even a "kill you for your beans" type of weapon since you will likely be killing someone far away that you won't even bother looting. This problem is related to #1 (ammo scarcity) and could in theory be alleviated by it. A DMR would be fine if you really had to think about pulling the trigger instead of just spraying down an area with 7.62 rounds knowing you have 20 more clips in your tent. Making military grade ammo ultra rare could be the balancing factor. 3.) Gear Degradation Without going into a lot of detail, basically Fallout or FarCry2 style gear degradation. The more you use something, the more wear it suffers and eventually needs to be repaired using similar things, leading to jams, misfires, reduced accuracy, etc. This would help make common guns like a Makarov more interesting (easier to maintain) and help to reel in some of the higher end weapons by making them harder to maintain as you would need to visit more dangerous areas to find similar components. It also makes looting more interesting because you might find a rusty shotgun which is unreliable and eventually loot your way up to a shiny new one. Also, being outside in inclement weather or being hit by zombies could degrade the weapon. 4.) Reasons to Work Together This is perhaps the toughest one on the list, but it is related to all the other points. Right now I will shoot anyone on sight that is near me or that I think sees me. Why? There's no reason not to. Right now the game exists in a sort of "Prisoner's Dilemma" state - since there is nothing to be gained from working together with a stranger, if I let him live the outcomes are either "I keep living, which I would have done anyway" or "I die and he takes my beans." That's an obvious choice. To be clear, this is not a "take away PvP" suggestion. Player killing is an integral part of the game and not one I want to see go away. All I want to see is a reason for me to consider not shooting on sight. Making ammunition more scarce makes this more interesting. I might need to bluff with my empty shotgun. We might decide that we each have a few rounds and we can therefore loot a better place. We might find that since we lack the means to shoot eachother in the first milliseconds, we have a chance at interaction. I might find him chasing me with a crowbar as I take off running into the woods, trying to loose him over a hill top or something rather than turning a corner and getting 2 slugs in the chest and a respawn screen. I'm not sure if the ArmA engine allows for it, but imagine having a friend help you over a wall you couldn't get over normally. Or even just small things like that might nudge you in the peace direction: - having another player bandage you restoring some blood. - limiting the amount of gadgets you can carry at one time so finding a guy with a compass or a hunting knife is useful alive rather than as loot. - being able to share resources, such as if I select a can of beans I can "eat beans" or "share beans with Joe". If I eat them it works like today where I get 100% food restored, but if I share it we each get 50% food restored. It's not often that I consume resources at 0% so this could let groups be a bit more rewarding. You could even go full bore with this and have a class that you choose at rollup. Are you going to be a medic (faster and more healing bandages / transfusions, maybe can set broken bones without morphine)? A huntsman (more and better animal meat)? A gunsmith (better / more efficient gun maintenance)? Having people being able to bring different skillsets to the table provides a lot more in the way of making interactions more interesting. 5.) Cheap Stuff Some of this is bugs, some of it is just what we consider non-ideal design decisions. A lot of this has been hashed already so just a quick summary. This is the sort of stuff where I die and question whether I actually want to keep playing. I have had friends quit over some of this as well. Dying is not a problem as its the core of the mod - dying to stupid things or things completely outside your control is what is frustrating. - Zombie speed. wtf. Combined with extremely poor hit registration / death registration, every encounter with zombies right now is a wait until they're running straight at you or run inside and kill them as they come through the door. - Being knocked out. My most recent character died because he was knocked out on the first hit from one zombie from 9300 blood. The hourglass timer must have been set to a minute or something because that one zombie killed me before I could get back up. I don't dislike the idea of being knocked out, but lets make the durations and trigger zones reasonable. - Zombie ghosting. Zombies moving through walls and their frankly atrocious pathing in and around buildings is a touch infuriating. This might be an ArmA AI issue, but even still. - Standing up when crossing a threshold. I have absolutely no idea what causes this or what if anything I can do to prevent it, but I have died several times when stealthing among zombies and my avatar decides he's going to stand up. - Ammo refilling. From what I have read it sounds like this is being addressed but wanted to throw it up anyway. I noticed this when I found a suppressed M9 and was using it to loot a small village at the end of a play session. When I came back the next day it had full ammo again. I did a bit of googling and it sounds like there are quite a few people abusing this with some weapons. - Instant logout. I hear this is being addressed as well but wanted to put my support behind it. 5-10 minutes from your last being hit (or almost being hit) or shot fired would be fine. Thoughts and responses welcome.