

dev0
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This isn't a question/thread about DayZ directly but a question regarding the usage of the DayZ bug tracker found at http://feedback.dayzgame.com/ and reporting sever bugs through it. I believe I have found a glitch that allows for duplication of items. In the spirit of "responsible disclosure" I do not want to post publicly details about it before it was fixed. To make the devs aware of it I created an issue on the bug tracker and marked it as "private". Now I'm not sure if a] private means it's private to only me (as in only I can see the issue) or if the team is able to see it and b] I fear that nobody might notice it among all the noise on the tracker. I did add the tag "duping" which I would assume is tracked by somebody, but up until now there has been no reaction and I want to make sure this is picked up by somebody. If anybody could point me in a good direction? Thanks, dev0
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Thanks for your feedback guys. I reposted the bug as non-private: http://feedback.dayzgame.com/view.php?id=3007
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I think the reason for the outcry against Nighttime
dev0 replied to Gth's topic in General Discussion
TBH I believe the foremost reason for the night-time servers outcry is thast people can't tell if the server is a night-time server or daytime server before connecting. I created an issue on the DayZ SA bug tracker. Vote up if you agree that we should be able to see the day-time on a server before connecting -
Heads up I want to state that I am aware that there was a thread on this topic before. In my eyes the idea was not fleshed out well enough and the general presentation of the suggestion was less than mediocre. For this reason I am posting my own thread on this topic. Cars and other Vehicles are a valuable asset in DayZ. They are rather hard to get hands on, and even harder to keep your hands on. In the last couple of days me and my squad fixed repaired about 4 vehicles and stole another 2 or 3 from their stash. All of them where stolen from various locations around the map from us again by now. This is the reality for thousands of players every day. And I believe in it's core this is a good thing. However, since obviously every character in DayZ knows how to hot-wire a car (or keys are always kept behind the sunblind), there is only one way of securing your vehicle while you are offline: hide it, as good as you can, as far away from any spot a person could randomly pass by. And here I believe DayZ could do better. Randomly stumbling across a car and stealing it should be possible, but also I think it would be nice to be able to secure a car against random stealing, at least to some degree. If you head out, well prepared, to look for a car and then steal it, you should absolutely be able to, and no game mechanic should prevent you from doing that. But if you just stroll around the landscape and come across a car you should not be able to easily steal it, if it's owner has applied some security measures. Such security measures could come in the form of wheel clamps (aka wheel locks or immobilizers). Wheel clamps can be applied to any car, making the wheel which they are applied to unusable. Wheel clamps can be removed in two fashions: either regularly by unlocking it or forcibly by using a crowbar. Removing it forcibly however, would render the wheel it was attached to unusable, making it harder to relocate the vehicle after removing the wheel clamp. Finding a wheel clamp Wheel clamps would be very rare industrial or farm loot spawns. Making them only farm loot spawns would balance them out gameplay wise a bit better, since you wouldn't be able to find them easily while looking for the other parts to fixup your car, requiring you to search for them separately and thus actually invest additional resources to improve the security of your vehicle. Wheel clamps would take up three inventory slots (they are heavy and bulky after all). Applying a wheel clamp To apply a wheel clamp to a vehicle, you need to have the wheel clamp in your inventory and be adjacent to a car while looking at it. The action menu of the car will then show a "Clamp <wheel>" option for each wheel on the vehicle. E.g. a motorcycle would show a "Clamp front wheel" and "Clamp rear wheel" option. Clamping an already clamped wheel is not possible. After selecting the clamp wheel option, your character would perform an action animation, just as it does when you fix a part of a vehicle. As it finishes the wheel clamp is removed from your inventory and a wheel clamp appears on the wheel. The wheel of the car is now clamped and rendered useless for as long as the clamp remains attached. Driving with a wheel clamp A vehicle with an attached wheel clamp will behave as if the clamped wheel was broke down. Also, driving with an attached wheel clamp will actually break the wheel it is attached to, rendering it useless even after the clamp was removed regularly. Lastly, it is not possible to replace or remove a clamped wheel at any time. Removing a wheel clamp regularly To remove a wheel clamp regularly the character who has applied the wheel clamp will have to approach the vehicle again and select the "Unclamp <wheel>" option from the action menu. Note that only the character who has applied the clamp is able to remove it again regularly (as if only he had the keys to the clamp). If the character dies, it won't be possible to remove the clamps regularly anymore. After choosing to remove the clamp regularly the player will perform the typical action animation, remove the clamp from the car and place it in his inventory, given he has 3 slots available. If the player does not have 3 slots free in his inventory, the unclamping will fail with the message "Not enough inventory slots". Removing a wheel clamp forcibly If you are not the player who applied a wheel clamp or your character who applied it died, you will have to remove the wheel clamp forcibly. Removing a wheel clamp forcibly requires you to have the crowbar tool on you. You will not be able to remove a wheel clamp forcibly without a crowbar. Approach the car you want to remove the wheel clamp from and select "Forcibly unclamp <wheel>", where <wheel> is the clamped wheel. Your character performs the action animation and removes the clamp from the wheel. However, removing a clamp forcibly will always break the wheel clamp as well as the wheel it was attached to. You will need to replace the wheel with a fresh one, before you will be able to use the vehicle normally again. Although this mechanic is pretty fleshed out with only a couple of loose ends, details are subject to change (e.g. rarity, spawn locations, duration of animations for applying, removing regularly and removing forcibly, etc). Please provide me with feedback and your opinions. If you like it, please tell me how you like it and how you would use such an item. If you don't like it, please let me know what your concerns are or what you would change, to like it more. Thank you, Daniel
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I am living in Germany. Germany is infamous for its very strict youth protection laws, especially regarding display of violence in games and films. In Germany, games and films receive an age rating, similar to the PEGI rating. But if they are especially violent they may be refused the rating. Media that does not receive an age rating is considered restricted in Germany. You may still buy such media, if your are at least 18, but public display of such media is prohibited. So you are not allowed to advertise such media, display it in shelves or report on it in magazines, etc. Basically you commit commercial suicide if you do not get an age rating in Germany. For that reason most companies release special low-violence versions of their games in Germany. I am pretty sure a game that allowed you to shoot children - even zombified ones - would not get an age rating in Germany.
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In fact, when I talked about this with my Squad, we also talked about camo nets, bear traps and spring guns or makeshift mines as a means to secure a vehicle (or stash in general). I am well aware, that camo nets have been suggested throughouly, so I decided not to suggest them again. Regarding spring guns, I am not sure how to technically implement them in a way that would work: how do you set them up, how do you place the trip wire? Wheel clamps just seem like the easiest to implement while providing a reasonable strong effect. I can see how a wheel clamp might just make any possible thief into a vandal, simply destroying the car or rendering it unusable by e.g. shooting all tires. So a wheel clamp is not an automated underground parking lot with security doors. Point taken. But nevertheless: an immobilized vehicle is better than no vehicle. A destroyed vehicle is better than a vehicle in possession of some stranger. And in the end, the incentive to move out and simply steal a car from someone is still lowered, since it will actually cost you something to do so. This will have an effect on how many people ever even find your vehicle, since it will have an effect on how many people are willing on investing these additional resources to steal a vehicle. People not interested in stealing a vehicle will not move out to find one.
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Please reread my paragraph. By removing the wheel clamp forcibly he will break the wheel that was clamped. If he does not repair the broken wheel he will not be able to easily take the car. Repairing this wheel is the investment the thief has to make, to be able to steal the car. That's what this suggestion is about: raising the cost on the part of the thief in stealing the vehicle.
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The whole point is in forcing the thief to break the car before he is able to steal it. Giving it a "workaround" by allowing it to be removed without breaking the wheel would stifle the sought after effect. Also, requiring the crowbar the to remove the wheel clamp would give the crowbar an actual use in the game. In the end though it does not matter if a crowbar or a toolbox is the item required to remove a wheel clamp, as long as the tire breaks while removing it forcibly.
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You're missing my point, maybe I did not make this clear enough. Currently repairing a car and keeping it up and running is a huge investment. You have to find a car wreck, search and find all the parts to repair it, get the fuel for it and finally find a decent hiding spot. Stealing a car on the other hand requires absolutely no investment on the part of the thief. In the simplest case he simply stumbles across the vehicle and takes it. No investment at all. In the most expensive case he travels around the well known spots for car hiding and takes the next best car he finds. The resources invested are still very low. By forcing a thief to actually break the car to steal it, you force him to make an actual investment in stealing the car. Either he has to be carrying around a crowbar and a car wheel all the time, or he has to pick up those items, after he found the vehicle he is going to hijack. This greatly increases the resource investment for the potential thief. Stealing a clamped car, is not simply something you can do by chance. You will have to invest time in it. Yes, he can still steal the gear, gas, whatever. But he won't be easily able to just grab the car and drive off with it. He will actually have to invest ressources himself to be able to gain control of the car. This will greatly change the value of vehicles for the positive. Most of you probably don't give a f*ck about vehicles, just as I usually do. I did explain why I don't give a shit about vehicles. The investments required far outweigh the benefits you reap - if you haven't simply stolen the vehicle by chance from someone else. Wheel clamps can shift this balance sheet a bit towards the positive. Wheel clamps would add to the game, and not remove from it. It has a positive effect on the value of vehicles, it adds a reason to the game to actually ever go back to a barn later than 30 minutes after spawning, it adds choices for the players owning the vehicle ("should I get out and look a long time for a wheel clamp, or should I simply find a very good hiding spot?"), it adds choices to players finding vehicles by chance ("shall I simply leave the car, blow it up if I have the resources to do so, or shall I venture out to find a crowbar, if I haven't got one yet, and pick up a replacement tire and actually steal the car?") and it makes venturing out to steal a car an entire small game scenario for itself. I don't see any reason to not add it. I see a couple of good reasons to do so.
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You would probably not find wheel clamps in most locations available in DayZ. But then again it is highly unlikely to have historical Enfields just lying around in residential areas, rotor assemblies in random factories or DMRs in Deer Stands. Does it really make any difference if I need a car so badly? I don't think so. But if it really makes a difference to you: personally I don't need a car. I don't think driving around in them is much fun, I don't think investing the time fixing them and keeping them running is worth the effort, due to their sound level and visibility they are death traps and most of the time you will hardly enjoy them longer than your current session, since they will be stolen. No, I really don't need a vehicle in DayZ that much. You are absolutely right to grenade the shit out of a car you cannot take. In fact, when I find tents, I will take anything I want and then remove anything else of considerable value (mostly endgame weapons) and explicitly save the tent, to prevent the stuff from reappearing after the next restart for the same reason. Nevertheless people setup tents and place their stuff in them. People will want to clamp their cars for exact the same reason as well: if I can't have it, you shouldn't have it either.
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It's not a bug, it's a feature. Stop server hopping and you will stop spawning at the beach.
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Should we remove barbed wire in the next update
dev0 replied to mattlightfoot's topic in Mod Announcements & Info
If it currently does not cause any bugs keep it. I was the guy who asked the question regarding above ground construction on the IGN Livestream. I strongly believe that the game should focus on above ground construction instead of implementing underground construction. Maybe reduce spawn chance of barbed wire, increase spawn chance for toolboxes a bit. This should balance it out. -
DayZ Gun Awareness Part 1: Realistic Damage Tables Based on Ballistic Trauma
dev0 replied to bazbake's topic in DayZ Mod Suggestions
If you ever read or wrote a scientific paper, you should be aware, that the format in which the references are given is the way the scientific community is giving references to scientific papers. Just sayin' (as an academic researcher - to hop on the bandwagon of "I know cool stuff, bc of my job"). Use google scholar, your university's library and whatever other resources you have at hand to look up the actual papers. I don't know. In fact I haven't read those papers. If you are really interested you should look them up and read them. What I am trying to say is, that basing weapon damage on ballistic trauma through permanent caviation alone does not seem to be current state of ballistic sciences. The fact alone, that there have been so many high profile scientific papers published that seem to come to conclusions that are not in line with your "data", should provoke some amount of critical thinking. Kind of, yeah. I described, as I said, secondary effects of ballistic trauma (which btw. might or might not be caused by permanent caviation alone). The point I am trying to make is, that even if we adjusted relative weapon damage to be in line with permanent caviation wounds, it would not fix the damage model, for as long as gunshot wounds would not leave you with big feckin holes that piss blood all over you. Let alone the fact, that the as far as I am aware the ArmA II damage model does not take lung, heart or spine traumas adequately into consideration, which would be far more important, than an relatively fixed penetration damage model imho. You have two tries to guess. -
DayZ Gun Awareness Part 1: Realistic Damage Tables Based on Ballistic Trauma
dev0 replied to bazbake's topic in DayZ Mod Suggestions
I was more referring to this part: Regardless, the actual problem with weapon damage is, that the trauma usually does not kill the victim directly, but secondary effects, caused by the trauma, like shock, organ failure or blood loss. These secondary effects should receive care, not the initial penetration damage. -
DayZ Gun Awareness Part 2: Comparative Lethality/Rarity of Dayz Weapons
dev0 replied to bazbake's topic in DayZ Mod Suggestions
I see what you did there. Why do you use multiplication for lethality, why don't you add the numbers instead? Is magazine size really a factor for lethality? Don't all weapons have a significant large enough mag to kill a player? Isn't weapon range more important in most cases than weapon damage? But it's raw value in meters is usually smaller. Maybe you should use centimeters instead of meters? I hope you get the point why randomly selecting some weapon stats, crafting some arbitrary formula out of thin air and trying to compare the effectiveness of these weapons based on the result of the formula is not going to get us anywhere. -
DayZ Gun Awareness Part 1: Realistic Damage Tables Based on Ballistic Trauma
dev0 replied to bazbake's topic in DayZ Mod Suggestions
Actually, it will most likely not kill them instantly. Only leave them with a blood pissing hole in their belly. Even when shot from a bolt action sniper rifle. Considering this I believe the ~2k damage for a STANAG round is well balanced, if it leaves a bleeding wound that kills the player within a few minutes if not treated. PS: But maybe the bleeding debuff should have more negative effects, that a bleeding player is hardly able to keep fighting. Maybe morphium could be used to reduce the negative effects of a bleeding wound temporarly. Bandaging should take longer. -
DayZ Gun Awareness Part 1: Realistic Damage Tables Based on Ballistic Trauma
dev0 replied to bazbake's topic in DayZ Mod Suggestions
While I like the idea to better balance out the weapon damage to a more realistic degree, I don't think your scientific data is really at the current state of ballistic sciences. At least the wikipedia article on waepon stopping power references a shitload of current and up-to-date scientific research papers that provide evidence that for example force in the form of a shockwave and temporary cavitation can in fact result in damage in the nervous system. Besides that it also states that the stopping power from most gunshots, no matter which caliber, are almost entirely psychological in nature. If you're not shot dead or unconscious by a direct hit in your central nervous system, you are most likely only partially or not disabled at all, if you exclude psychological or pain effects. Most gunshot wounds will not kill you fast or even instantly. You will bleed out however, if they are not treated accordingly. Which organs are hit (heart, liver, lung, etc) is far more important regarding bleeding out, than the calibre of the weapon is however. If the bullet does not hit any bones or instantly kills you or knocks you inconcious by hitting you CNS, the wound alone will most likely not disable you, at least not if you can overcome the psychological effects like fear and pain by training or intoxication. After reading only this one wikipedia article I am pretty sure that stopping power and lethality of a gunshot wound is much more complex than only taking it's permanent caviation into consideration. -
To measure the effect of something you will have to eradicate any other factors. So if you want to measure or look at the effect of the L85 on squad based game-play, you will have to compare squads equally geared and of equal skill-level. You should distribute various different numbers of L85s to these squads. You will then be able to measure the effect a L85 has on squad based game-play. And yes, there are temporary imbalances in the game, like not having access to firearms, or playing like a half-foot, being outclassed gear-wise by higher tier weapons, etc. The point to all of those is that you have multiple or very generic approaches to solves those problems. You can gear up. You can pay more attention to the game and it's mechanics. You can outmaneuver your opponent. You basically have options. Having options is what drives a game. That is why open-world and sandbox games are so compelling. They provide a shitload of options. The reality about the L85 is there is only one option: get as many as you can on your squad. No question about it. The difference between very powerful and broken is that a broken mechanic will have a positive feedback loop that continues to add to itself. Usually you have the options of "play it or beat it". With a broken mechanic around this is basically reduced to "play it", because there is virtually no way to beat it (without over-dedicating resources to it - which I don't even see as a possibility in the case of the L85). If your meta-game is stuck in such a positive feedback loop by a mechanic, you must consider it broken. There once was a nice write-up on what makes a game mechanic broken by Aaron Forsythe from Wizards of the Coast following the banning of Skullclamp. I don't know if anyone involved in this discussion ever played Magic: The Gathering, let alone competitively. But if you ever did, you should read it. It provides great insight on for what reasons mechanics should be considered broken. In my eyes the L85 absolutely fits this description. No, I am still assuming your experience with the L85 is not throughout enough to judge it's actual power-level. You are free to convince me it is. I might then think you are an ignorant idiot. Not that I would actually call you one, for the sake of keeping this discussion as objective as it can (and should) be. I truly believe the L85 thermal mechanic is broken and should be removed. I do not want to break into a senseless flame-war on this topic.
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That is how lots of indie development works - especially modifications. Counter-Strike was first released as a beta version, Minecraft even in an pre-alpha stage. Both hugely successful games. Their early versions where nothing like the final versions, but where building success already. Releasing a modification in an early version is a legit step, it helps in experimentation and trying things out, balance out the gameplay experience and helps finding nasty bugs. Usually it provides a flawed or reduced gaming experience for the players, but this is just part of the deal of an early alpha release. Yes the modification is buggy, the game engine which it is build on is glitchy and the gameplay experience is nothing like most games - especially regarding how unforgiving it is and how much it will hurt your feelings. But I don't think its a waste of time entirely or a pitiful assclown scheme. Over a million players have tried it, it is buzzing ArmA II into Steam Topsellers list for weaks now and most people love the immersive and compelling gameplay even though it is buggy, glitchy and so unforgiving. People are used to cotton up to bugs in games, not lastly because of the low quality of so called triple A titles and major releases in the last couple of years. But people are also sick of the incredible shallow and softened up gameplay experience of most of the games of the last couple of years. There are only very few games in the last years, that are not created independently, that are original, hard to beat or simply refreshing. DayZ is all of that at once.
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Actually not. I do play on a squad of 3-6 people. We have multiple L85. We looted them from heli crash sites as well as from our enemies cold hands. I did everything you demand in your post and still I believe the L85 breaks PVP in this game. I'd actually say that if you don't realize how broken the L85 is, you are either not doing squad PVP against equally geared squads or you have never actually used an L85. There's also the option of you being an ignorant idiot, but I wouldn't impute that to anyone.
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I am not the OP. Just some random dude who chimed in. The AWM/AWP was never considered broken by competitive players. This is simply false. I have been playing CS competitively and friends of mine still play 1.6 competitively on a high skill level. Nobody ever made a call that the AWM/AWP is broken. I never played HL or TF competitively, so I cannot say anything about that. I also played WoW competitively in Burning Crusade, PVE as well as PVP. We had BT on farm, had a couple of Gladiators on our Guild and although we never got a set of Illidan's blades, we had the mainhand on two different characters. One of them being a Gladiator. He never used the weapon in PVP. Only to showoff. However: all this does not say anything. Even if all of what you say was right, it might just mean that those players complaining about the power level of mechanics on those other games where simply wrong. Or their developers/designers made the wrong judgment calls. Or there actually have been nerfs and you simply missed them. In the end it doesn't matter: failures in other games do not provide an excuse to repeat those fails. I could sum up plenty of examples where game mechanics got called out as broken and where nerfed / fixed / removed from the developers since they agreed. Most of the time with a huge uproar in the community. Because there are always fans of mechanics, especially of broken mechanics. Nobody would cry if the Makarov is removed. Loads of people will cry if you argue to remove something that is actually very strong - if not brokenly strong.
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It's interesting to see how everybody believes if you complain about something being overpowered you must have been raped by it. In fact we have 3 L85 on our team and constantly use it to gain an advantage on our opponents that is hilarious if they don't have an L85. I just stated it because someone laught at the fact that Ghillies should or could conceil your heat signatures. Maybe you are. Maybe you're not willing or not able to see how the weapon is broken. Maybe your testing didn't actually involve spotting any enemy squads because there haven't been any around. And maybe I am wrong, a giant douchebag and making things up. Seeing you are a squad player with end-game gear you will probably agree that spotting your enemy before he spots you gives you a tremendous advantage. You can easily win a firefight against a squad that wasn't able to spot you before you take out one or two of their dudes. Even with inferior numbers and firepower. The L85 gives an enormous advantage in spotting your enemy. A single player with a L85 can easily overwatch a 360 radius while still spotting any enemy without a L85 before they even have a chance to see him. The L85 makes it hilariously easy to exactly track player movement, count the number of approaching enemies, and all over a great distance. I believe we can agree on all that said. The only difference is that I think a single weapon that gives you a such tremendous advantage over your opponent and makes you win or loose firefights all by itself is not healthy. A single piece of equipment of such a powerlevel, that possesing it or not has such an high influence on the outcome of PVP encounters, is most likely broken and not well balanced. You might not like high profile squads releasing on YouTube. However, some of those squads, e.g. Sacriel and his squad, belong to the most experienced, well geared and generally strongest squads in the whole game. Even though they won't be always right, also make mistakes and wrong judgement calls, they have a very strong opinion on the L85. It is broken. And I don't want to argue that another players statement is a weak argument, but on this forum it seems like everyone who makes a point against something, like an overpowered weapon, is disregarded as a noob or should stop crying after getting raped. I think I made my point. I brought up arguments and explanations. I have my own stand on this matter. I do not just rephrase what other people are saying. I hoped showing that not only some random dude on the forums thinks that there is a serious problem with the weapon, but also some very well known and successful competitive PVP players, would help me make my point. I guess though the only thing you get is even more heat. I like playing competitively and for that reason me and my squad will continue to use the L85, but I also like a healthy competitive environment. I don't think the L85 adds to that healthy environment.
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As I said, spotting is everything in a squad vs squad encounter. Killing in close combat *would* be possible wthout the L85. On range it is only very difficult if you do not know the exact position of your enemy. The fact that the L85 could be even more broken does not help the fact that it currently is broken.
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There are Ghillies in real-life that actually conceal your heat signature. Someone who does not think the L85 is way beyond the power level of any other weapon in this game either has never used it or does not understand that oversight and knowing your enemies position and movement is crucial to winning a squad vs squad encounter (which is where the power of the L85 lies). If you don't believe me (which I do not expect) go listen to some of the high profile YouTube squads bitching about the L85 being broken.
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The L85 is ridiculous.