Nighteyes

Does the ArmA 2 engine support locational based music? Or is it just in a playlist? The mod already has some pretty good ambient tracks that fit well with Cherno or Elektro. Clanging of metal, a humming sound like a generator or tanker in the distance. Would be nice if there were a couple of custom tracks when entering an inland village, or some forest/field type ambient tracks. A soft breeze mixed with some creaking wood. Rustling leaves and occasional twigs cracking. Something similar to what we have now but with a more rural sound to it.

You have my vote! Make them both audio and visual.

Get off the coast.

If you remove the zombies, there is no survival. Getting items would be mindless so food and water and even weapons would become trivial. It would basically just be a 50 player death match on huge map. If that is what you want, play normal Arma II

What you just described is kind of my point. You drop your pack and go scouting. You die, eh no big deal your group has your pack. Group member lives should be more important than just a pack mule and a gun. This is a survival simulator right? If this was real life, we would meet people with various skills. Having a member with an important skill die would be a big loss for the group. And I don't want people to pick their skills at the start as that would result in players trying to min/max their skills. I hope that this answers your question. That is the role of these skills. As it stands, dying as a lone wolf is punishment enough. You will basically lose everything you have. In a group, they hold on to your stuff and you can get most of it back in 30 minutes. There should be something more that you can't get back even if you make it to your group/find your body in time.

Criticism is always welcome! There is nothing wrong with playing as you want to play. But if you find a skill book for sniper weapons, you might consider switching to the next sniper rifle you find. They are only meant to influence a persons play style a little. If I found the butcher book, I would start hunting animals more. It would benefit my group more as well and instead of anyone getting meat from a cow, they would have me do it. Edit: Let me expand on this. Let's say you have reduced zombie detection and are walking with your group. Your group decides to send you in while they hold back and cover you. You go in, loot what you can, and bring it back to them. If someone finds extra pack size skill book, they might decide to give it to you so you can bring back more loot. This gives the player a special role. And every person likes to feel special. It gives them a task to focus on and feel good about. That is what it adds to the game. Edit 2: Also, if you die right now, it sucks for the group but they can just loot your corpse and just wait for you to show up again. With skills and specializations like I mentioned, the group will really feel the loss. They might lose a tracker/butcher, or a zombie slayer, or a looter. It adds even more to the group aspect as you have to decide whether to risk blowing your cover to save your group mate and get a horde of zombies on you or let him die and lose his skills.

I am not too aware on what is possible with the engine currently, but I have an idea for a skill system which would keep up with the spirit of the game. First, let's look at how most skill systems work in games and how it wouldn't fit well with Day Z. Most, if not all games, have a skill system where after a player levels up, they gain some points to unlock new skills. Whether the skill is arbitrarily given in a certain order or the player has access to a skill tree, the way skills are given to the player is generally the same. Why this system wouldn't work for Day Z. Let's say a the game gains levels and experience and the player kills 30 zombies and gains a level. Then he picks or is given the skill to repair his weapon. That makes no sense that he spontaneously gains the knowledge of repairing machinery just from killing zombies. It breaks the mood and the spirit of the game. [updated]Then how could we implement a skill system? [being discussed] I thought about this and feel I have come up with a way that will completely stay within the atmosphere and gameplay of Day Z. I think skill books should be added to the loot list. When a player comes across a book, they have the option to study it and gain the skill it provides after a certain amount of time, let's say an hour. Upon reading it, the book will be consumed and destroyed(gameplay purposes). The skill will then be activated for the player when he finishes studying the book (maybe have an icon show up showing that the skill is active). The impact to Day Z, both gameplay and social, could be huge. This keeps with the scavenging gameplay of Day Z and adds something more to lose when a player does that can NOT be looted from the corpse. [updated]Impact to gameplay: Searching for skill books would become a huge factor in the game. It would add specializations to players. Players who find certain skill books would change their style of play to compliment their new skills which could be a good way of pushing players to try various play styles. Also, when death occurs, skills cannot be retrieved nomatter what. This adds something that is 100% permanently lost. [updated]Impact to social behavior: Groups will have to decide more about how to approach a town and who to send in because they won't want to lose anyone with skills. If a group loses a butcher/hunter, that would become a huge loss in their ability to find animals and heal. Losing a groupmate would have a much bigger impact when the group permanently loses something. [updated]How to keep it balanced: Limit the number of skills a player can learn. Keep the max number of skills to about 2 or 3. Once you learn them, that's it. There is no way to unlearn them and you don't have the time/ability to focus on more skills. Secondly, the skills should never make doing a task trivial. They shouldn't lower the skill required to do a certain task. They should add a bonus to doing such task to show that this player would be better suited to do something than others when assigning tasks. [updated]Skillbook ideas: [being discussed] I have no idea what is possible in the engine. Also the numbers are not balanced at all. Just want to get some ideas out there. I have broken them up into categories. General skills Distance Runner (Longer / faster running) Space Management (pack/tent size increased by 20%) Butcher (20% more meat from animals) Tracker (animals within 1 km to the player show up on the map) Mechanic (Fix vehicles with less scrap metal) Gun Repair (if durability is added) Offensive skills [being discussed] Steady Shot (More control when firing automatic weapons) Breathing Techniques (Less movement when zoomed in with scoped weapons) Defensive skills Nursing (1 bandage gives 2 uses? Still working on this one) Strong Willed (Pain jitters will fade naturally after 5 minutes or so) Survivor skills [being discussed] Camouflage (50% reduced detection by zombies) Journal of a Zombie Slayer (Never panic. I assume panic sounds will reveal your location in the future) PVP skills [being discussed] Silent Hunter (Reduction in movement sound made that other players can hear) KGB Handbook (Mouse over any player will show name even on hardcore servers) Lucky (Players have a chance to drop an extra clip of their currently equipped weapon when killed) Spawn rates would be similar to maps and other semi-rare items. Obviously, some books would be rarer than others. Whatever keeps it balanced and fun. Anyways, let me know what you guys think. If it is possible with the current engine and looks good, let's get it added to Rockets things-to-do list. Thank you for reading. Edit: Updated skills. Edit 2: Updated description of the system.

This game needs beards. Beards make every game better and this game is no exception! Why? Because I fuckin' said so. Link the beard to the length of time the player has been alive. We all spawn as smooth as a newborn babies ass but every 6 hours or so, stubble starts to grow. If you manage to last a week, you are a fuckin' terrorist in training ready to Jihad some zeds. You wanna hide your long life and cut off your beards? What are you a bitch? Fine. Get a knife lubricated with fresh cow blood and shave that sucker off. Then everyone will think you are a noob with no good loot. But if you got balls, let that sucker grow out and show everyone you ain't no lady. Support this idea unless you hate freedom. tl;dr BEARDS

I have thought about the health a lot and here are my suggestions and reasoning. Healing should be regenerative. Not like modern shooters, however. Right now, a can of food gives 200 blood. Let's change it so a can of food gives 400 blood over the course of an hour. Eating a nice cooked steak should give a double regen bonus, like a buff status, that lasts for 1 to 2 hours. This will give you 800 blood every hour for the duration of the buff. The only way to immediately raise blood levels is with a blood pack. I think this will really add to decision making and keep people with 10 steaks in their pack from being overly careless because they can instantly get back 8k blood.