TOPMO3

LOL @ pic.

Played for an hour or two last night, the sky was dark, I could see pretty far, but mostly dark silhouettes. It was pretty fun believe it or not, to stumble around houses with a flash light, and fight off zombies that I couldn't see coming. Maybe that's just me though. Very high tension. I would be fine if the following were true. When using the flashlight, everything that's NOT illuminated by your beam becomes black (to give the sense of contrast. Your eyes can't see both extreme bright and extreme dark at the same time), but if you turn off the flashlight, over time (10-20 seconds for the tonemap to adjust) your eyes readjust to the dark, and you can make out shapes again. Maybe you wouldn't be able to see items on the ground etc, but you can make out buildings, shapes, zombies (barely). Now all they need to do is bring back that creepy atmospheric DayZ night music. I agree that the only black is pretty bad. Even in very VERY dark conditions (pretty rare) eventually your eyes can dilate and allow you to make out something. I would be ok with them creating a radius around your character, like a mini light fall-off that's local to your player only. A local light that allows you to barely see what's around like 10-15m radius around your character. Beyond that.... darkness :ph34r: Again, I think this goes back to the idea of WHY people prefer day to night. Because in the current build of the game, visibility, and the ability to make out shapes in the distance is paramount in dayZ. Taking that away (current night time visibility), means almost a direct correlation to removing the desire to play at night. If they can figure out a way to change the game mechanics at night, to make players less anxious, I think people would enjoy night time. For example. Make night time the same across the board for everyone. How can this be done? Completely remove all gamma tricks, but fix the night visibility. DO NOT MAKE NIGHT TIME just like day time except with darker tones. Make everyone's see black silhouettes, unless they are within a 10-15m radius of you, then you can make out details. This will help when looting stuff, when trying to avoid zombies, but it will still keep things tense because outside that radius, you're just as f****d as you are now. Add some other interesting mechanics in, and I think people will really enjoy it. For example, if woods are more dangerous during the day (animals are awake), make woods safer at night (animals are dormant), they can still be dangerous due to wandering zombies though. Or how about you set the respawn of items to be more at night time, this would encourage people to do night raids on structures. It was nice to see that Rocket agrees that nights are a game play issue right now, and they are being wasted. "We need to decide how to manage it's implementation but the short answer is that I concede your basic premise, people don't play at night and we want to make night more part of everyones gaming session so they enjoy the challenge it brings." Hopefully this means ideas are being implemented on how to make this more fun.

Could not play on Experimental last night for longer than 10 min a session. Kicked from server, rejoin back on beach. Tried 2-3 different servers multiple times. Lag would get progressively worse, until total lock-up, and kick.

I think there's a hotfix coming. <3

Having zombies randomly spawn around you because you're engaging other zombies might be a bad idea. I think having endless waves of zombies who instantly know where you are isn't a good thing. Having 10-20 zombies chase you, and then give you a breather before more spawn in would be better, I feel.

I remember when I started playing the mod, people didn't care about night time. Eventually they stopped playing because people were discovered using the gamma glitch to get advantage over those who weren't using it. Basically when the balance of the night-time experience was broken, the night-time game play broke with it. I am interested in getting to the heart of your argument. "Most people won't play at night." Can you give me a specific set of reasons why you think this is the case? What about night time in this game that makes players avoid it?

I am completely against Thermal, but if I have to accept NVGs, I would say YES. Have them take 6 batteries, unusable in the rain, over-heat after 30 seconds, and make their visibility range like 50m. I should not be able to sit on Sniper Hill outside ELECTRO and clearly make out guys running around by the church. That's BS. NVGs give you incredible advantage at night. They should have hard counters built IN to using them. Or as I mentioned earlier, looking at a bright light source should blind your character with a huge glare in the middle of your FOV for a few seconds. That way, if a noob sneaks up on a NVG sniper with a flash light, instant counter :)

This harks back to my topic that we've had multiple exchanges on Katana, and I will re-iterate some of the things I've already said. After some consideration based on feedback from my thread, I would say that before ANY real change to zombies can happen, they MUST respect collisions with buildings and environments. They must have more simplified LOS, and have better hearing. This would allow for stealth to a certain degree. Basically how they were in the mod, minus the walking inside buildings etc. I think harder zombies are a must, but server stability must be better before we talk about 1-2 hit bleeds, and 5-6 hit kills. With server lag being as bad as it is, you can lag out, and be dead when the server catches up. I miss seeing a mob of zombies run through the streets, it was an obvious tell that someone was either in trouble, or on the run. I haven't seen that in the SA. I also haven't seen zombies shuffling or walking. Miss it.

The tears, the golden tears of anger, they are my life blood!

Yes please. This is exactly what drew me to the mod, the fact that I couldn't get a quick grasp on the game right away, is what makes me keep coming back to it. This shouldn't be about logic, or "why are you awake", this is a game, and it should give people chance to experience things on their terms. Right now people don't play at night because nights are broken. I think everyone is in agreement on that. My opinion is that if they are fixed, with the changes I proposed, and we make them not only playable, but also fun, they can do great things for tension and excitement in the game. What if zombies had a different AI routine at night, not talking about sleep here or anything, but what if because nights are darker, their vision became nerfed. How about hunting at night becomes much easier. Animals which are normally aggressive by day (boars, wolves, bears) become more docile or even dormant at night, allowing you for safer passage through woods at night etc. Please don't truncate night time to 2 hours, that's one step short of removing the night cycle completely. Those who used to play the mod, before the gamma glitch, will tell you that it's very very possible to have a 40-man server full at night time. Night has it's own varying levels of intrigue, and possibility for fun game play, you just have to be creative with the game design around it. I'm disregarding all future posts by you man. You make very little sense, and your posts are %80 troll posts. I was hoping you'd contribute something to the discussion, but you seem to be having some elitist issues. Good day sir. The mod allowed server owners to offset server time, independently of their local time, which would solve the "same time of day, everday" issue. Hopefully the SA has the same feature. Also, saying things like "most people don't want to play at night" is a completely generalization, and I don't agree with it. All of my friends enjoy playing at night, because of the level of tension it provides. I find that my FPS is better at night too. Things need to be fixed before night time is fun (gamma glitch) but it's doable. Here's the thing. The mod, in my opinion, had near perfect zombies. There were lots of them, and firing a rifle in town would alert all of them to your location, you would get rushed by 20-30 zeds. They were brutally hard. One or two hits would break your legs, you would bleed out, and if you were surrounded, you were dead, no way around it. It made them a threat. They weren't without their down-side though. I think the engine prevented them from running indoors, so pretty soon people figured out that you can train a horde of zombies into a building, and then just pick them apart with melee or pistols as they slowly shuffled towards you. People also figured out that in the wild, you can hug a tree, and that would immediately break their line of sight on you, and they would lose agro. If both of those things were fixed, along with the collision issues, and teleporting zombies, I think they could be left exactly as they were in the mod. WIP sure, but I feel like the zombies were pretty much "there" already, in the mod!

I'm baffled how people are saying anything in this game should be nerfed. This game was successful BECAUSE of it's brutal difficulty, and no-hand-holding approach. People who remember the early days of the mod will understand, and agree. People who expect the stand-alone (a game which was born OUT of the success of the mod) to be somehow more appealing to "newer" players, must not see how this game's difficulty is essential to it's appeal.

Bro came. Bro saw. Bro flamed. Bro left. Bye bro.

Yeah I only mentioned the tents/storage in the woods as a wishlist thing. There are a myriad of critical issues the game has to address before anything even remotely close to my suggestion can be implemented.

Not sure if you've played the mod or not, but empty cans were very useful back when the zombies were deadly. You would throw the can and it would create a noise as it landed, the zombie would move to investigate, and you would sneak past it. Very useful just when starting out, when you had no way to defend yourself against zombies that 5-6 hit killed you.

I will second this. I think general randomization of loot is a good idea. On a side note, I'd also like to see tents/storage/supplies randomly spawned in the woods. Think of it like helicopter crash site but in the woods. Players can stumble upon them, and get supplies, weapons, etc. Just something to randomize it up a bit.

Agree with all of these things. I would not want to see a "Tank" or a "Special Infected" type of mechanic get introduced, because that would be silly, but all other aspects of zombie mechanics need serious work, and would really help make this game great. Hadn't considered that, you may be right. Server stability would need to become dramatically better for something like this to be possible. But even with lag, making something very difficult could add another layer of pressure on the player. "Do I sit outside of town and starve, or do I go inside, and face the horde of zombies on a laggy server..." lol maybe, maybe not. LOL really? Let me quote Dean... Is it worth to buy this game now? For the current game? No For the price? No (it will stay this price for some time) To see the game? No (you can watch streams) To participate in development? Possibly I am criticizing the game BECAUSE it's in it's current state. THIS is the exact time when you need this sort of feedback from the community. THIS is the time when you have these discussion, and make these decisions. I am ALL for shortening the day/night cycle. I am fine with 2 hours dawn, 4 hours day, 2 hours dusk, 4 hours night. I don't think less time at night is a good thing. Making part of the cycle shorter is an admission to the player that it's an afterthought. It also punishes players who enjoy night time. I think make night time playable by removing the gamma exploit, make visibility better (but please not like daytime but dark blue filter :) ) decrease visibility distance maybe, allow the player to make out detail but only within a certain radius of himself. 30-50 feet at best? Past that, make the player rely on items to see better. Flashlights, etc as I mentioned earlier. I agree %100 on the "no end-game" aspect, and yes, having things to do with your better loot is interesting. I think you're saying there isn't much to do right now because there really isn't. Unless you're in a town, there's nothing scary about this game. No animals, no wandering threats, nothing. The most scary thing that can happen when you're outside of a town, is get sniped by a passing player (one in a thousand chance in this huge map), or fall on broken Geo and break your legs. Maybe starve. If there was a more constant and persistent threat, something that's always on your tail, maybe zombies spawn randomly everywhere, then slowly shuffle towards the nearest player. Keep the player moving etc. Something to think about... I hate NVGS. I owned several pairs, and Thermal guns too. The game became incredibly boring. I turtled up because I didn't want to lose them, and the game play vanished for me. 3PP is ridiculously exploitable. Your character can literally see around corners without ever showing himself. How is this a good thing? Yes the 1PP has it's issues with seeing through walls, but I think this is much easier fixed. It's a z-draw issue on the geometry, and you can't really exploit it past that once it's fixed. Thanks, it took me quite a while to think what the real problem with the game was, and I think this summed up the huge aspect for me. The crashes, glitches, lag, disappearing items, zombie collision, teleportation, inventory system, broken spawns. For these complains ONLY will I accept that "IT'S A FUCKING ALPHA" excuse. Because all of those things are code/optimization/hotfix issues, and are being worked at, and WILL get fixed. The core gameplay design, in my opinion, isn't there yet, and I hope that it gets more attention.

I would love to see gear get damaged from zombie hits! This would work well to ruin gear that you have, and force you to cycle your equipment. I applaud your ability to create challenges for yourself, I think that's pretty cool. However, I think your solution, while very clever, is a work-around for what I consider pretty bad core game play design right now. I think #1 priority is to fix zombie collisions and agro system, then make them much more threatening and numerous. I agree. To me Mumble, TS, Vent are all just a convenience tool. I would rather be playing with my friends in the same room, but I can't so I use software that simulates the experience. Saying that it's detrimental to certain aspects of DayZ, I don't know if I buy that. That's like saying having an "Undo" button in photoshop is detrimental to your skills as a painter, because you don't have to "Repaint" or "paint over" your mistake. It's a matter of convenience. I was around in the Mod days when this was an exploit that everyone used, myself included. Gamma exploitation became pretty bad, and people either didn't play on night servers, or you did, and you used the trick. If this can be locked down, make night visibility just slightly better than pitch black (more so on full-moon days), and allow for readily available illumination (Flashlights, glowsticks, flares) I would play on nights exclusively. They're much more fun imo. %100 agree on the clipping/floating/sinking/teleporting zombies. If they make the zombies as I requested, and there are still these issues, it would break the game to no end. Agree that the collision issues should be #1 priority. I also prefer for my DayZ experience to be player driver, and I never said anything about scripted AI. I just think overall there should be more stuff to be afraid of, other than a group of bandits. Currently there is nothing threatening to me except other players. If as a player, I chose to play this game lone-wolf style, and never interacted with other players at all, currently, I would have ZERO game play, because there is nothing for me to fear out in the woods. That's bad. Amen dude. I would go a step further and say that if you made zombies a true force of nature, and something to be feared, players might even work together more to survive encounters with them. Instead of shooting at each other in a zombie-infested town, they might declare a temporary cease-fire (shooting a gun around a horde of zombies = instant agro and death), and work together to loot supplies, before leaving town. Remember the days of early Mod, when people would KOS, shoot someone, and then themselves get eaten by an instant mob of zombies who heard the shot? Good times...

I guess I was the only person who played Super Mario Brothers, and ran into the first goomba, which killed me not 3 seconds after starting the very first level. I didn't have any instruction. No pop-up appeared telling me to jump. But a few months later I had beaten the game, and for a 10 year old it felt like I won the life-time achievement award. Making something really hard, also makes your success at it exponentially more unforgettable.

There is so much WTF here I don't even... Ok let me try and explain myself. Your counter to my suggestion of this game being non-threatening right now is "Don't play via voice with your friends, and don't use the browser map, and restart your character?" If I don't use any map, and don't play with any friends, that isn't going to make living in the woods more fun. It isn't going to make the zombies hit harder, or make them more of a threat. It isn't going to make people too scared to play at night. It isn't going to bring back all of the tension that used to be there in the mod, but is currently a critical missing piece in DayZ SA. All it's going to do, is make my time playing DayZ just a "tiny" bit more involved, not a whole lot. I play DayZ without friends online plenty. I don't need TS or the Map to tell you that currently, the core mechanics that made the mod amazing to play, are not in place. I know that "most" of the stuff I mentioned is confirmed "to be put in the final release". I'm happy to hear that. I am also equally worried however, that it isn't IN THE CURRENT BUILD OF THE GAME. I guess my overall point of view is that I wish this game to be great, and I think it could be in a very fun playable state already, if those things were added in, instead of new cities, cooking mechanics, and other stuff I don't consider to be high priority core mechanics.

Interesting. Lets talk about this. I don't know how much using dayzdb.com map actually is cheating. If you drop me anywhere in DayZ within 30 minutes I can tell you where I am. Having the map open doesn't protect me against tough zombies, or starvation, or PVP. I don't think using the map "breaks" the game. Using teamspeak or ventrilo is cheating? Since when? I use it because I play with friends. If I could, I would bring my rig to their house, and play in the same room with them, then I wouldn't have to use TS or Vent, would I be playing "fair" by your standards then? Vent and Team speak is a social aspect to gaming, not cheating. Now I will %100 agree with you that jumping on to an empty server when you're about to enter a dangerous area, or server hopping when you're taking fire/injured is the worst thing you can do right now. That has been, and currently is my #1 pet peeve, even more than what I mentioned in my OP. I personally don't do this, but I know people that do, and it makes me cry a little inside. Playing the game without a gun is a little bit lol. I use whatever I can until I find a gun, but I'm not going bandit hunting with a knife :) Overall though, thanks for the constructive input. I agree with you on most points!

I fail to see anything constructive in your posts. :) I understand that it's a video game, but if you're implying that us having an in-depth discussion on game balance and core mechanics is silly because "it's a video game lol", then why are you sitting on the games forum to begin with. I hope it's because you want to participate in the discussion as well? I shouldn't have used the term "real-gamer", and in hindsight feel pretty stupid for it :) I'll give you that. What I meant was that Dean made the game to be hard, I think when the mod was reaching epic popularity and the tears were flowing from the casuals, he even mentioned something along the lines of him wanting to make it even more brutal, but he was afraid to drive away the community. My point here being is that I think the intention of this game is to be difficult. If you want to play it, you have to die lots. I am fine with survivalists getting killed by COD kids who just camp Cherno/Electro all day. That's part of the game.

As far as I know, most games override any gamma adjustments that you make on your monitor. I could be wrong. Any expert opinions on this?

Good to know. I did hear in his dev blog about the pathing issues, and the zombie count. It's one of the reasons I paid for the SA. I was secretly hoping it would be closer to that product than where it is now :) I should be clear, I'm not bitching at all. I'm offering my take on the game, and what I would like to see come of it. I'm glad some people agree, and I'm thankful for the discussions with those that don't, or think I should STFU. :)

Actually I did. It's why I said that Dean mentioned there would be wandering zombies, animals, etc. What I'm concerned about is why these elements are not in the core alpha yet. Why I am able to spray-paint my gun, and attach things to my weapons, but I don't see any scary zombies in a game that's about zombies. I want to know why the game felt more complete 2 years ago, than it does now, with 40x more man-power and resources, and money in the project.

Not sure what you mean here. The mod had something like 1.5 million active players, and that was 1.5 years ago when I stopped playing. You have to remember that while the DayZ mod is free, meaning, anyone can download it, Arma II wasn't, and PLENTY of people paid for an Arma II license (myself included) JUST to play the free mod. It was brilliant. I hate to be harsh, but as of right now, the mod (which was also in alpha, and had less resources) was in better shape 2 years ago, than the stand alone is. Now this will change, and I hope quickly, but it worries me that the Dev blogs talk about new lighting, physics, and hunting, when at it's core, there is nothing to do in the game besides gather items, and have fire fights with players. The game right now isn't hard, it's not hard at all, and that's why it's boring. If there is no risk, there is no reward. If you don't have GREAT risk, you will have no GREAT reward. You will have just another "meh" zombie shooter, instead of something truly amazing. Dark Souls is a great example. You think it's a great RPG? Some innovating dungeon crawler? It's all been done before. What's great about that game is how brutally difficult it is, and it attracts people who enjoy that. DayZ isn't out to attract free-weekend warriors, it's out to attract the real deal gamer. One who is willing to put in the time and patience to learn a truly unique game.