xalienax

as a PvP-oriented player, i can say i look forward to easy mode finding a dark corner to die in permanently. The lack of infected, almost all populated servers being 24/7 daytime, and broken loot (either one extreme or the other from one patch to the next) really ruins the gameplay for me. While to do prefer to let others do the work and take the spoils for my self (shoot-Kill-Take)- without massive time investment for both predator and prey it has no meaning. I have stopped playing SA entirely and won't be returning untill full-release or mod tools, as i want to play 'extreme hardcore' where having 3 bullets or working fire arm of any description and health enough to reach the next town is 'doing exceptionally well'. i want a high risk of dieing from exposure/thirst/zeds/etc before ever finding a gun at all. i want to be pretty much forced to supplement my food with either farming/scavenging/hunting or by raiding others because there is next to no canned goods around. real time day/night cycles. weather, and more. I like the PvP element, and KOSers make it more tense in my opinion, but i want the risk-reward ratio much more brutal then it has ever been. When i see a player i want to think to myself 'is his/her gear Worth my bullet' instead of 'YAY! something to shoot!'

this is why ive been pushing for more unique towns/locations then simply urbanizing everywhere like they have been. each major city should have a big-draw facility or location that is exclusive to that city that contains a lion's share of a given item(s) on that server. Eg. you could have one town with a bigger more modern medical facility- if you or your friends need modern antibiotics this should be the GO-To best chance to find it. lot of reasons for this but my top 3 are- 1. Organically creates conflict 'hotzones' having specific types of things condense in a well known locations. 2. Gives a real incentive to leave the coast and traverse the map by making some items pretty much unobtainable outside of these specific locations 3. Creates 'realistic' and authentic 'traffic patterns' since you can assume people will generally try to bee-line it from one High-value location to another. This crates great opportunities for smart players to take the 'route less traveled' and avoid any would be choke points- or use them to ambush others!

Different stroke for different folks i guess. No where should be 'safe' but i dont agree with the idea of spreading the human traffic (or indeed increasing it) 'equally' to all areas either. its both unrealistic and fundamentally changes how the game plays imo. I do agree with you on one point however- that spawning need some serious revision. also i think loot distribution need serious revision. There should be specific reasons to go to specific towns. more unique buildings rather then spamming the same buildings by adding towns everywhere like they have done. Eg. One town might have a major warehouse that served the areas stores (likely contains some of the basics). another town might have a major medical center (best chance for rare medical items). Farming villages good places for hand tools, etc. I think certain 'predictable routes' are not only a good thing but quite realistic as well. varying up player spawn locations might increase the odds of meeting a freshie, but most people will quickly revert to doing laps of 'prime loot' spots or making the heli crash circuit. 'sensible' concentrations of specific categories of loot would at least incentivize people to move about more, in a non-intrusive and natural way. Most of the towns and cities (excepting military locations) all feel very samey. there is no reason if im in one of the new cities in the north to head way down to the south west since more or less once civilian area might as well be the next. If each of the major towns/cities had one or even a few special buildings/facilities unique to them, that had higher spawn rates for items that make sense to be there, then there would be a reason to travel the great distance. also please note, Im not asking for designated 'loot-splosion' buildings- just enough of a rate bump to them to make that specific city & unique building the Go-To for more specialized items.

the map is too small for anything over 50 with the deforestation that's already ruined this once-nice map. i keep hearing 100 players tossed around. i seriously hope that never happens (or atleast that most private servers go 50. imho 100 would be stretching it for altis. Encounters should be extremely sparse (unless you seeking them out by going to 'hot zones'). cramming more players into the same space and increasing the rate of encounters will really ruin the game imho- and make encounters not seem like anything special or significant.

well said m8. i can definitely see that point of view as a major concern. For me personally, the AI helis never took anything away from servers that had them, and in some cases i found it to add an interesting meta in that the increased frequency of hearing them could lead to complacency, then an actual player one opens up on you! (there was also a fun thing about trying to 'fly like an AI' in hope of getting gullible folks to shoot at your heli so you could easily spot and kill them from the air and have your buddies bail out and loot them.)

The should spawn the heli *FLYING* have it wander around some way points before crashing/being shot down. where ever it crashes the loot spawns. this shouldn't be *THAT* hard to do when the dev team has direct access to the engine's nuts n bolts. even A2 mods did this. this serves several purposes; 1. The heli can be damaged by player fire resulting it it crashing off course from the waypoints. More possibility for randomness. 2. Have several sets of waypoints, and spawn the flying heli with varying amounts of feul you could make it crash/land in almost unpredictable places. Basically you up the number of variables that can effect the choppers time in the sky and routing thus making it nearly impossible to predict where the crash will be. 3. Creates a 'living world'. choppers don't magically appear wrecked for no good reason. you can hear them flying, you can (if close enough) hear them crash and see the smoke/explosions 4. Solves hop-Based hunting because theirs no guarantee that ANY server will have a chopper in or near that location at a given time. 5. Solves 'heli routes' making you actively scavenge the map or bee-line when one goes down near you. 6. If they can address duping exploits once n for all, they can start to put some real top tier gear in these that make them worth the trouble. GPS, Night-vision, Crank or Solar power generation devices for charging items like the GPS. maybe even on rare occasion NV or thermal optics. they could also make these the exclusive source of certain high end medical supplies.

Honestly, more infected. Human population should be sparse. encounters should be a big deal unless your in a hotspot. 100? hell no! only if the map were the size of arma 3's altis. with current chernarus i's say 50-60 tops that i'd consider a 'good experience'. that said i like the idea of wandering the countryside for hours without nary a sign of human life.

quite frankly i wouldn't play it. the intital uptake would be fun, but it would quickly dinwdle as players get 'banned for death' which would reduce interactions, risk of pvp, competiton for resources/vehicles/prime base locations/etc. ultimately becoming stale- requiring a wipe/reset at some point- which agian would be unwelcome. Survival games expect a lot of time investment and rely heavily on risk/reward. turining it into what would be essentially be a round-based arena PVP game that drags on for weeks or months would just make me go play something else.

Typical of what happens when the files are restricted and hosting options are thusly limited. Less competition = Higher prices. Let every one with a mcine and a internet connect host so these GSPs have to play ball and offer either competitive rates or vastly superior services to justify the price point.

to be fair tho- You'd also be well justified to negativelty review the design/production process and speed of progress of that furniture maker if you felt they weren't meeting expectations. The minute you take money for something, people have every right to criticize. No, you can't review an alpha as if it were finished release- you can however review your experience with the progress of that title. - I feel many of the decisions dayZ devs have made are wrong for the game. (Played Official mod way back when it first went viral and wanted MORE of that experience with refinements. i really hate how the scope of the project was changed after it became so commercially successful) - I don't feel BI/Devs have been particularly good with how they have handeled the release-stream of information willy-nilly thru social media. (implementation of dev tracker posts here is a start but honestly come on BI.) there is no reason for not having a link on the home page with complete patchnotes and version history. - I am thoroughly Un-satisfied with the rate of development and release schedule. Other EA titles frequently push multiple patches out PER WEEK. Space Engineers maintained a weekly release scheduale. I've seen ARK get more then one patch in a SINGLE DAY. Im not saying one time table suits all projects, but the month + gaps with little new info and no updates is silly. push those buggy builds to exp. branch as soon as thier even able to run and lest get some testing done. bottom line: you take my $, you also take my complaints. period. I dont think/know id Standalone with 'suck' or not. it's not done. But i will continue to pick apart Design Choices that i think are detrimental to the game and business practices that i think could be better.

+1 I really wish for dayZ to stay as close to the simulation side of the street as possible. Getting to the point that you (and if you have friends along your crew) are looking at long term projects and not simply making it for the next 24hrs should be a major achievement in it's self. i already think the amount of reliance on the 'magic loot fairy' the game grants us is far too steep. a slim sprinkling of items from before the collapse should be all thats left, and much more heavy reliance on improvised tools/gear and bushcrafting.

i would like to see a 'sensible' loot system as well. As in the locations we find things being more viared but logical places to look as well. with CLE in place i think another nice addition (if its posssible) would be to track on the back end the 'most frequently looted' areas and over time have it dial back spawns in those area simulating them being 'cleaned out already'. it would go a long ways to keep people mobile and actively searching for thier needs and wants rather then just hitting up this patches looting hotspot.

While i agree with your sentiment, I do wish dayZ strode a bit closer to the simulation side of the street. TBH i think all guns should use thier actual real-world cartridges, and those which cant be used interchangeably IRL shouldn't work in-game either. (even weapons of the same caliber. EG. a mosin uses 7.62x54 where as the AK47/AKM and vairents use 7.62x39). Heavy blunt-force mele weapons like a sledge/axe should 1 shot to the head. period. i really wish they would stuff balance and go for realism all the way.

+1 People need to get out of the 'gear i want' mindset and more into the 'gear i need' mindset. once you do that things always fall into place if you stop camping elekto/brezino/etc and play the game. @ OP if your goal is to play a 'sniper' character, remember snipers are more then shooting everything from really far away. Patience, discipline, and the element of surprise are the best weapons at your disposal. Once you have some cargo space, ample food + drink, and a sitck that goes BANG in the general direction of the bad guys, most geared players are just foot-mobile loot containers for you to raid if you play smart :)

Use the dayZ launcher for 3rd party mods, or install the official mod from steam. also this belongs in the MOD section. edit here: http://dayzlauncher.com/