Sando

Pretty much this, I only kill people in bandit skins, I spent a few hours camped up on Stary, watched a hero loot the supermarket through my scope, watched a group of 2 survivors go through 20m from me, would have been free kills. Watched a group of survivors loot the military tents, etc. Saw two guys, one in bandit one not, took out the bandit and left the other guy. Of the 9 people, I killed one, and most of them never knew I was there at all. I consider myself friendly, no way I'd ever have announced my presence to those people though. Turned out the bandit I killed was just in the bandit skin and was actually a survivor, sad times :(

'Alpha bro' is a predictable response, and to a certain extent a fair one. However if the bugs/current gameplay too severely limit our ability to test things, how can features be tested? How can we talk about gun balance when most of the games out there are duped/hacked? This is a fairly simple example, but the idea of 'tone down the number of high level guns' has merits as an idea, but is impossible to test given the state of the game currently. Alpha bro is a legitimate statement in many cases, it's not a catchall for 'lets ignore bugs/hacks/exploits'.

Murderers and bandits have been given all the tools they need, and many more, to enable them to play how they want to play. They can kill whoever they want, steal their stuff, etc. We've also given them more than 100% anonymity, because even if players identify them in game, they can change their name and appearance whenever they want. It's about time that people who want to play a different way are given some more tools. It's our job to stop the murdering, but we don't have the tools to do that currently.

This question has always bothered me, how do you maintain threat without making it pointless to try and defend? My only real thought was that you could build front doors with a bank door basically, which if you don't know is set to lock for a certain amount of time and literally cannot be opened during that time, by anyone. So a clan can set a timer (not sure on visible or not to other players, that would need some thought), during which no one, not even themselves, can access the building. Then make it some sort of minimum timeframe after this where it can't be reactivated, like 4 hours or so. This would mean that clans could have a very clunky on/off switch as to when they can be raided and when they might need to defend it. They can't simply lock it for an hour and go raiding, because then they'll have to defend it for 4 hours before they can log off. The clan can, however, ensure that there are people on whenever the place is accessible and be able to defend it. Basically, you want people to be able to sleep/work without worrying about someone plundering their stuff, but they shouldn't really be able to do very much in game without the threat hanging over them.

I agree about a reset, or a semi-reset (everything but what's on your character). Not sure how this can be done with the server infrastructure and forcing community servers to reset at a certain point? I agree with the ability to live off the land 100% once you've got canteens/knife/matches/hatchet is a bit silly. I think removing the ability would be too much, but I think forcing people to replace those things reasonably often would be good as well. I think there's a middle ground there, but the change to charges on those things needs to be made and made high, then tweaked.

Huh? I just think that non-military should be viable options for certain playstyles. If you want/need the highest damage stuff, then for sure, go military, but some advantages of an AK might be nice, like sound/ammo abundancy. Everything pulls zombies from everywhere now, that's sort of my point. If everything pulls zombies, sound becomes a meaningless 'stat' on guns. I don't think I've ever gotten away from the coast on a character and not ended up with 3-4 stanag mags for my non-existent gun. SD rounds, yeah they seem pretty rare, which is a good thing. I specifically said that they should leave gun damage and optics alone...and tinker with other things like ammo spawns and sound. Maybe in the future repairing weapons could be a thing. Military weapons should 100% have damage/optics advantages, but they should lose out on other things like ammo spawns.

Currently in DayZ there are certain 'tiers' of weapons, and this has been amplified with the recent weapon changes from ArmA. What this effectively creates is an elite of players who get high tier military weapons, allowing them to gather more effectively, allowing them to hoard more and ensuring they basically never have to worry about early game again. The reason there are tiers is not because these weapons are more damaging, which of course is required, but that they are simply better (or at least equal) in every way. Ammo for these guns isn't any rarer than the mid-tier weapons, they don't create any extra noise, etc etc. You in effect give up literally nothing, in exchange for much high damage and range. DayZ is about choice, yet this is effectively removing choice. There's none of the subtlety of choosing between a high-dmg weapon with low ammo spawns and a medium damage weapon with abundant ammo. Some of the low-medium level weapons need to be buffed in ways other than damage, and military level weapons need to be nerfed in ways other than damage or optics. The two most obvious are sound and ammo spawns. Military weapons are not too powerful, but they don't have any/enough tradeoffs to make people even consider not using them.

What tools are being put in, or reported/rumoured to be?

Yes, it is a risk, and always should be. But you should be given the tools to mitigate that risk, rather than being forced to blindly trust the other person.

So a big part of this game is that there isn't (and won't be hopefully) game controls on how you want to play. Want to be a KOS scumbag, go for it! Want to be a saviour of mankind, awesome! This is, undeniably, what makes the game great, and I would fight as hard as anyone against anything that limited your ability to do/act how you wanted. The problem is that the game currently only supports those two types of players. Since you have no tools to identify a friend/foe, you have in effect provided the tools that encourage either blind killing or blind friendly. And by the time you're close enough to communicate with someone you could have been killed 10 ways from Sunday, given the range and firepower of high-tier guns. Want to be that guy that carefully evaluates the situation, and makes a judgement on a person/situation? Sorry, there's no way for you to tell anything about the person you're looking at. He can change his name/appearance at the drop of a hat, not to mention change servers whenever he feels like. You simply do not have the tools to enable you to actually make an even vaguely intelligent decision of the situation. The attitude of 'don't apply any in game mechanics to player actions' is actually limiting our ability to play our way, rather than opening it up. Rocket has, thankfully, made clear he understands the distinction between 'punishment' and 'consequence', and this needs to be applied in such a way as to give tools to the people currently struggling to play their way, without punishing the people who want to KOS etc. I'm not going to offer solutions (although I've thought of some), because I'd rather keep this to the principle rather than the practicalities. I'd like to see the game develop to where people are KOSing because they want to, not because the game limits their ability to do anything else. I'd love to see the people who KOS be genuinely feared and respected, because they've chosen to do something that not everyone does, rather than simply be the same as everyone else. PVP and KOS is imperitive to the health of the game, there just needs to be tools to play a different way if you so choose.

I actually think inventory should be something that requires some forethought. I like that organising my backpack/gear takes a little while and that when I'm doing a raid on something I need to ensure I'm maximising space vs speed to pick things up. My problems with it are: Hard/impossible to tell what is on the ground without accessing it through menus, I think being able to visually distinguish things on the ground would make me a happy camper. Speed/responsiveness of the UI, quickly picking things up is tricky given the lag and delay you get doing it. I've never encountered the grass bug. Agree on the other stuff, especially the spawning of zombies, which doesn't actually seem to be a bug, but a 'feature'. I'd like to carefully clear a town of zombies and then move in, but one shot in town and all my hard work is destroyed. It encourages 'bad' play, which is bad for the game imo.