Swi1ch

I'll preface this by saying that I am not a programmer and thus I do not know the limitations of the engine, so it could well be that something like the following suggestion is not at all possible. At the moment, zombies have two states; passive and aggressive. I would like to suggest a third, which would be alert. Zombies currently hear much better than they see, and thus it is usually sound that triggers their aggression. This appears to be based on a rather basic scale; certain sounds travel further than others, and if the sound reaches the zombie, they react to it. This can be rather strange, as zed can somehow pinpoint your exact location from a good distance away. I would like to see some form of threshold on this trigger, causing the alert state, that would work something like the following; (Note; all numbers are for ease of concept rather than hard figures and would obviously require significant tweaking. Also, all references are based on zombies, and not distances player characters would hear audio.) Weapon X has a sound radius of 200m. The first 100m would trigger any zombies within the area to immediately 'look' at the sound source. Any zombies that identify a player would immediately aggro onto them. Zed that were within 100m that can not see the player, would begin to move towards the sound source. Zombies outside that 100m, but within the 200m range, would trigger an alert state; they continue with whatever they are doing at the current time, but repeated triggering of this alert state from the same location (For this example let's use 25m of the original sound source), within a certain period of time (Let's say one minute) would cause the zombies to go and investigate. This repeated triggering would ideally be somewhat randomised (although more than once or twice to trigger investigation) so that players aren't able to say to themselves "OK, I can fire three rounds before I must move out of the area, where I can fire another three rounds". The randomisation means that the longer the player stays in the same area, the more risky it becomes, and they do not know the exact extent of the risk. There are many reasons I believe a system similar to this would benefit the game, but I present two; From the Survivor point of view, it seems that at the moment having an overwatch buddy on a hill with a sniper is entirely useless, as a single shot will trigger the horde onto him. I feel it would be entirely realistic to have a three man team send two people into a town whilst their sniper uses his extended vision advantage to guide them in. He could then provide sniper support on any zombies that are in the path of his friends, but not be able to just clear the entire town. He would have a rough estimation of how many rounds he could fire within a period of time without severely endangering himself. Firing more than that to support his friends would result in him having to relocate and leaving his team without support, so it's a trade off that needs to be considered. From the Bandit point of view (Ohh, controversial), right now a Survivor (Or another Bandit, for that matter) can be fairly certain of their safety from snipers in many towns (Before you comment, realise I said 'many', not 'all') as a Bandit will likely not fire in order to avoid getting himself overrun by the entire horde. With this system, a Bandit can still fire on Survivors in towns, but must be wary of firing too many times, as even if zed only moves to investigate rather than becoming fully aggro'd, they will head towards him, revealing his general location. If he chooses to fire fewer times, he then needs to relocate, during which time the players in town can get to cover or spot him. I considered the possibility that this may make the game borderline unfair for solo Survivors, but I believe in this situation, as the benefits of being solo; Less time needed to be spent in hostile areas as less supplies are required, less chance of being spotted by hostile players, less chance of making a mistake and aggro'ing zombies, would weigh nicely against the benefits of being in a group; In this situation, a bandit must fire many more times to down the group of Survivors, which puts him at far more risk of being identified. So a Bandit would be much less likely to trigger zombie investigation firing on a lone player than a group, but is much less likely to spot them in the first place, and if that player attempts to take cover he is much less likely to trigger zombies than a group. Thoughts on this? If you don't like it, please provide a reason. Also, inb4 we don't need more snipers. It's part of the game, and balancing it is important.

Well, damn. Scratch that part from the post.

Oh, yes please! And as this is clientside I don't see it causing any work for the devs, and I can't think of any balance issues off of the top of my head.

Note; this is a long post that covers several concepts, but they're all concepts that are linked together at the core and thus I deemed it better to keep them in one post. I should also point out in advance that i'm aware the current zombie spawns was not intended, and my post has that in mind. There's a lot of discussion on the forums about the zombie spawn rates, where they spawn and how many spawn. 1.5.7 has people fighting over whether it's too far, or not far enough, with some suggesting that the forests too should be rife with the undead. Whilst most people agree that the zombie spawns need tweaking, I would like to suggest that keeping the forests clear of zombies under normal conditions is the far better option. The reason I believe this is that the core emotional resonance of DayZ is fear, and the risk/reward factors of overcoming or facing that fear. Fear relies on pacing and tension in order to be truly exciting. Pacing and tension in the game right now are provided not be a crafted experience, but by the very nature and mechanics of the game. We've all that experience of laying in the treeline, observing a town from which we need to gather supplies. This is the downtime. We then approach the town, which builds tension. We're then in the centre of town, surrounded by zeds and the possibility of encountering hostile players. This is the height of tension. Then we either escape safely, providing relief and downtime, or the tension explodes into a fight, which ends with relief and downtime (If you survive). Having the woods crawling with zombies would kill the pacing, and kill the tension. There needs to be places of relative safety in order to provide pacing. It also kills the risk/reward elements, as if you're in just as much danger in the woods where there are no supplies, it makes no sense to be there. This eventually leads to a constant high level of danger which becomes less scary, as there are no ups and downs and a player just gets used to it. Even more experienced players who may get used to the tension spikes of getting in and out of danger zones eventually gather more valuable loot, meaning the risk/reward levels for them fluctuate, as they have more to lose from raids and therefore providing that ever crucial tension. These places of relative safety also provide a wonderful sense of player choice. You're not forced by immediate danger into breaking from the treeline into town; you have to choose to do it, and the knowledge that your choice might get you killed adds incredible amounts of tension. (Note; someone will likely point out that you have 'no choice' to enter a town because otherwise you will starve. This is true, but you're not typically going to immediately starve in five minutes, and thus the current danger level is low, and thus pacing and tension are currently low. You still have to make the choice to enter the town there and then). Another thing that the current zombie spawn rates have caused is a severe difficulty increase for those players who want to go solo. The primary argument that i've seen for making it very difficult for lone players to survive is that it's realistic. It's a valid point, but it needs to scale more effectively with the benefits of working together, and this comes back to player choice, risk/reward and the tension involved with it. Whilst a lone player has no one to cover him or aid him in a fight, a lone layer is significantly less likely to disturb the horde, attract the attention of hostile players, and consumes X times less food, water and ammunition. I'm by no means suggesting a player should be able to solo raid Cherno, but he should be able to quietly loot small towns like Pusta, or the outskirts of Zelenogorsk. In fact, a solo player should have a better risk/reward ratio on looting the outskirts of a big town than a group, as the amount of supplies looted would not be enough to sustain the group. Thus I suggest a very in-depth look at how many zombies spawn and where. A small town like Pusta gives a very small amount of low-tier gear, and therefore the punishment for making a mistake should be much lower than making a mistake in Zelenogorsk, or Cherno. I believe the current zombie spawning (Again, yes, i'm aware it wasn't intentional), whilst a big step in the right direction, currently throws the risk/reward out of whack, as making a mistake in small towns gets you just as badly punished as in big towns. This could eventually lead to even more saturation of small areas like Cherno that we saw in 1.5.6, with multitudes of players converging there; if you're just as likely to get killed for small amount of bad stuff as you are for larger amounts of good stuff, then there is no longer a reason to go for the bad stuff and player choice is effectively ruined. My last suggestion that ties into this is to remove zombie spawning within an X radius of active players. My first reason for this is purely mechanical; there are issues with the engine that means zombies can occasionally spot players through walls, and clearing a town, only to have a zombie pop in right in front of a player and aggro the whole horde means that you died not because of making a mistake or negligence, but essentially to RNG. My second reason for this is because I believe it should be entirely reasonable for players co-operating together to enact a cordon on an area of a town, and make a relative safe haven (Pacing and tension, remember). This wouldn't have the same level of downtime as hanging out in the forests, as you have the mid-level tension of possible betrayals, bandit harass, and liabilities who may attract the horde to your location, but are compensated on the risk/reward by having easier access to supplies and support. This is of course tied into player choice as you will always be aware that you may take a bullet in the head by who you thought was a friend, a bullet in the head by a bandit who knew about your static position, or wanting a bullet in the head because some idiot fired his weapon when he shouldn't and brought the undead to your doorstep when you could have been eating your beans safely in the forest. Well that's about it for my thoughts. Gratz if you didn't tl;dr it :D

In the very next patch? Increased server stability and decreased zombie spawn rates (Not amounts).

I love the idea, but not the execution. I think the images are too extreme and don't really achieve much and would be more annoying than detrimental. What I think you could do with this though, is for the player to experience disturbances (Mild hallucination). If you've ever gone 24 hours with no sleep, you'll know of these; you start to see movement and flickers in your peripheral vision. This would be more functional as a side effect as you would start to have difficulty differentiating between real movement and disturbances. The same could happen with auditory hallucinations, start hearing footsteps that aren't there.

I'm not about to suggest we add stats and experience and levels, but I was wondering if DayZ could do with a little more character persistence. I'm thinking about it for two reasons: 1. Groups of players stashing items with an over-watch team and running light to pick up loot. 2. Over-saturation of Cherno and Elektro, where players can just deathmatch. I know the first one is realistic, in that you would almost certainly do something like this, but in this situation players are not emptying themselves to run faster or to be able to carry more gear, but so that their character becomes worthless; they've essentially stashed their 'character' on the ground, and can fairly easily reset upon death. The second one is also fairly realistic, as hotspots of supplies that are contested makes sense, but right now players are doing similar to #1 in that they're stashing gear and have fairly little fear of dying. I think that it shouldn't be really possible to for a player to get into a position after the first hour of life on that character where they can safely throw away their life to almost no consequence. What do you think? Do you think it's fine as it is now? If not, do you have any suggestions? I can't think of anything that would really give players pause for though before suicide running or deathmatching outside of stats.

Not to become a bandit, but as a bandit yes. I like to fight on my terms, not the enemies, so if I don't have the element of surprise, or the superior positioning I will lower my weapon and slink away.

I for one welcome some fresh blood in the north. Let's have us some sport, chaps.

This sounds like fun. One or two bandits working the terrain will be less likely spotted that a rabble of Survivors playing policemen. Maybe I won't have to travel south nearly as much to look for prey, now that they're coming to me.

So, how have you guys adapted to your trade in 1.5.7? I solo, and previously I would hunt guys through northern towns with my trusty Enfield. Now, I find that identifying survivors in towns and moving to cut off their escape path with a Winchester is the only real source of sport and plunder without suppressed weapons.

If you guys are EU, try getting on US servers. I 99% hang at waiting for server response on EU servers but get into US servers fine.

This helps in getting into 1.5.6 servers. You can get into 1.5.7 servers with it, but your screen will black out and tell you to update. Updating to 1.5.7 after that does not help get back into 1.5.7 servers.