TanX

The Fundamental Problem of DayZ's Survival Gameplay (Wow this post became LONGGGGG, so it is quite messy, but I hope you get my point and hopefully agrees that something needs doing. :o) Introduction When looking at DayZ and explaining what it is to other people, what is it that we typically say? How should DayZ be played, what is the goal of it all, and how does the game actually live up to the accomplishments of these goals. When talking about the game I reckon we typically use one of two descriptions: 1) The game is a survival Zombie sandbox game, where you walk around trying to survive from the zombie hordes. (Survivor) 2) The game is a huge sandbox world where you try to gain equipment to kill other players and zombies. (Bandit) What is the problem with these two descriptions? As I will argue, the game advocates a certain play-style, and therefore fails to live up to other play-style-focused expectations. The PvP play-style is the only real play-style which is really supported by the game - in this play-style people seek weapons to kill other players, the survival and zombie aspect of the game is partially ignored, functioning as background noise. People are generally unhappy with the trigger happy nature of the game, the fact that everyone kills everyone. This is inevitable, not because people don't trust each other (though that is a main reason), but because the game would be pointless without player killing, since there is literally nothing else to do - hence the play-style is often a result of boredom from the survival aspect of the game. I stress the notion of boredom, since the game's lack of difficulty leave no choice but to succumb to the PvP nature of the game, the only aspect which actually makes the game a little exciting. Hear me out before you send me death threats and messages about how you love Zombie killing and survival. The Problems Here's the description of the game on the official DayZ website: "You are one of the few who have survived and now you must search this new wasteland in order to fight for your life against what is left of the indigenous population, now infected with the disease. Go Solo, team up with friends or take on the world as you choose your path in this brutal and chilling landscape using whatever means you stumble upon to survive" Surely this description is focused on survival. The player is put into a world full of dangers (primarily Zombies), and is told to survive with the few scraps that he gathers in the huge sandbox world. The problem with this description is that the game's focus on survival is not really accomplished within the current design of the game, since survival is not the focus, but a temporary nuisance. In my first play-through, I died to Zombies as I attempted to find out how the stealth system worked - after having died once, I had ZERO problems surviving. To understand why survival is not an issue, we have to pick it apart and discuss each aspect in turn, namely: food, water, blood, heat, weapons, Zombies and players: 1) Food Finding Food: Food is scarce in DayZ, or is it? In a post-apocalyptic world, one would, rightly so, imagine that food would be scarce. However, in DayZ you can find food everywhere. The main problem when you start the game is finding food, and if you play anywhere near efficient, you will have zero troubles finding food in the first town (or even building) you enter. When you have certain other materials (hunting - read below) food will be even more plentiful. Food can be found in (almost?) all spawn points, with quite a high chance of spawning. This non-scarcity of food directly abolishes the main goals of the game - completely removing the food aspect from the survival one. How many dies of starvation? My guess is very few, and only non-experienced players: those who are playing on some of their very first play-throughs. Hunting: Hunting becomes one of the easiest ways to acquire food with very little risk - in a world as big as CH, you can easily walk around in woods for days without seeing a single soul. Hunting requires a knife (easily obtainable), an axe (easily obtainable), wood (easily obtainable), animals/meat (easily obtainable), and matches (difficult to acquire). Hence, the only thing stopping you from creating an infinite supply of food with almost no risks, are matches. That said, a single visit to any larger town and you should have a pack in your possession. When an animal is found, it is not uncommon for it to produce 4+ pieces of meat, which is an insane amount in a survival situation, lasting for quite some time. This is realistic though, but again directly cancels out the difficulty of survival. Seeing how people like to describe the game as 'realistic', realistic in the fictional sense of course, one could argue that the hunting mechanic is simply too simple. Animals would surely be extremely hard to come by in a post-apocalyptic world, and surely matches wouldn't be the most difficult thing to acquire. Instead, the axe and meat would surely take the price in that regard, since matches should be located in any living room. Once again, dying from starvation is simply not possible. 2) Water Water is another important part of the game, which can be acquired through soda cans and bottles/ponds/wells. Just like food cans, soda cans can be found almost anywhere, and has the same percentages of spawning. This means that you can fill up your inventory with both types of consumables by going through a couple of buildings. If one wishes to create an infinite source of water, one will have to find bottles. These are found almost anywhere, and Zombies will even drop them. By having 3-4 in your inventory, you can easily go from pond to pond or simply stay in the vicinity of a pond/well to create an infinite source of water. Honestly, the water-acquiring process is a little too simple, and therefore, the water aspect of the survival situation is completely negated, 3) Blood When addressing the issue of blood loss, people often use blood packs as the solution for restoring your health. However, blood bags are completely useless. Bandages are easy to come by, so you can easily patch things up, whereas you only have a single issue - the low blood count itself. To solve this, all you need is the hunting setup as mentioned above. Cans add something like 250 blood, whereas meat adds a staggering 1k or thereabout. This means that a single cow will be able to heal you up in the 10k range. This wouldn't be a problem if cows were hard to come by, but they are so extremely plentiful in the world that you can easily find them on almost any large field. Blood is therefore a very temporary issue, and will be a non-issue once you have the hunting kit. If survival is your main goal, you will have absolutely ZERO issues with blood or HP recovery, since the meat that keeps you alive, is also extremely efficient at healing you back up should you lose some health. Since Meat and Cans have different HP recovery rates, a player is inclined to hunt, which makes the game so much easier for him, hence taking something away from the survival aspect. By consuming meat as food, the player will also always have the best conditions for recovering lost blood - two birds with one stone. 4) Heat Heat/warmth is a relatively new aspect to the game, and is most likely flawed in its current form compared to the state it will be in at release, hopefully at least. Heat is an issue during rainy days. By staying in a house, you will recover your warmth. Living in the forests with no houses about, the fire will instead fulfill the function of warming your body. This takes a few seconds, meaning that you can gain your warmth as you cook your meat - thereby making heat another non-issue. Heat is one of the easiest aspects of the game, since there are so many ways to solve it (heatpacks which spawn EVERYWHERE for instance). 5) Weapons As a survivor, the weapon is useful in the beginning of the game, but loses all significance later. The axe can be used for killing animals, and a pistol allows you to loot choppers. This means that a single run through a town (where you also find matches and bottles + generic gear), will give you more than enough ammo to survive for an eternity. 6) Zombies The Zombie is a stupid creature and very easy creature to deal with. They only spawn near settlements, and as a result are easy to avoid. They are unable to be a threat against a player, since they can be outrun if a situation gets too hot. The thing about Zombies in this game is that they are infinite and therefore pointless. You are unable to really 'clear' a town, since they just keep respawning. What does this mean? well it means that people won't be inclined to shoot at Zombies, since you will just attract a, literally, endless horde of Zombies. They will continue to rush in until you just run away. As a survivor, you won't need to go into a town AT ALL, since you are 100% self-sustained by the forests. Going into a town will simply put you in danger with no reward at all. This is one of the situations where an incentive will be necessary, but no such incentive exists currently. For many, the Z aspect of the game is key to them playing at all, but we are constantly reminded of the fact that the Z's are just for show, that they aren't supposed to actually play a significant role in the game. The Z's will only come into play during your first town visit, where after you will not need to revisit them again if you so choose. Honestly, the Z's need something more to them, they need to be a threat once again, and not only to people who just spawned with 0 gear, but also later in the game - but currently, they are not. 7) Players Players are not a factor when surviving, since you can stay hidden in the woods forever - and with good observation skills you will never need to interact with anyone. As we can see from these points, out of 7 different survival aspects, none are hard to master or avoid. You can create an infinite source of resources by living OUTSIDE of town. This is an important aspect of the discussion. If you want to survive, you can easily do that. It requires just a few tools and ZERO interaction with towns, Zombies or players. Therefore, surviving is not really a problem, resulting in a very one-sided direction in the game. You can really only do one thing, which is killing other players. Some people will kill zombies, which will quickly become pointless and dull, quickly redirecting them to the PvP route - there is simply nothing to do for survivors. People can go into the woods, and survive on the following: Bottles (refillable water) Axe (wood + killing animals) Hunting Knife (gutting and as a result, healing) Matches (cooking and heat) Four pieces of equipment is all it takes for you to survive in the words for all eternity! This is really kinda pathetic in a survival game, especially since only ONE of these items can be moderately difficult to acquire. This is what completely kills the survival aspect, the lack of actual survival skills required to survive. Players and Zombies are the only dangers a survivor has. Even then, Zombies don't spawn in woods making them a non-issue, and players seldom meet each other in woods, since you are such a little person in such a large world. The game's endgame scenario for a survival-focused player is accomplished within a single hour of play, whereas a PvP'er will never really reach an endgame. A PvP'er has a huge collection of weapons which can be acquired + a kill score to increase. The survivor has his health and his luxurious lifestyle to focus on, a mechanic which is non-existent in its current form. The game's focus is on the PvP'ers: the bandits: the campers. The game is no longer a survival game, but a large PvP arena. Survival is a nuisance, and the real goal is to find weapons. Let's talk about weapons. In a post-apocalyptic world, one would imagine guns to be fairly limited. The remaining survivors would have taken the weapons and scattered them all over the world, instead, we have a few generic locations which always bolster the best weapons, creating smaller PvP arenas. Is this a problem? I don't know, that depends on the goal of the game. Once again, it seems that the game is confused on what it is trying to accomplish - is it about survival, Zombies, or PvP? The spawn locations make sure that only bandits have access to higher-tier weapons, since no survivor would enter the airfields or military bases. Anyways, since this is supposed to be constructive criticism, here's a few ways to balance out the game, trying to put 'survival' back into DayZ. Solutions Here's a quick rundown of solutions for all the different points. Generally, what has to happen is that surviving has to be harder and more punishing, whereas Zombies has to have a bigger role within the game. The changes that I will suggest are not too crazy, since it is mostly balance/%/scripting changes. Generally survival needs more difficulty and grinding to make it more interesting. Some of the changes are thrown in for good measure, without having much to do with the aspects I discussed earlier. The vehicle changes for instance, which are more centered around fun and 'things to do' generally. Let me know if I should remove these. Generally what we wanna do is to increase the risks and problems associated with SURVIVING - so people will have to focus more on that aspect of the game, so they aren't able to always camp the airfield/forests or for that matter a single position within the larger/smaller towns/towers. The hardships associated with surviving and the need for visiting certain facilities, will make sure boredom does not settle in as you sit silently in the woods forever. (I realize the list is a mess, sorry!) Food and associated loot: Food and Soda cans should be much rarer, this means tweaking the % and the spawn locations. By lowering the amount survival will be harder, ponds will be more valuable as well since they offer a secure means of acquiring water. The rate at which food and water are required should be increased. This + the other suggestion above will lead to a higher supply. Versus the lower demand, the survival situation will become harder. Matches should have a slightly higher spawn rate in residential areas. Matches should be limited to around 75 tries. Lighting a fire should take 1-5 matches. Wood should have increased spawn rate - suddenly people have an incentive to find wood in barns and so on until they find an axe (see weapon section for Axe spawn rate changes). Wood cutting should take longer and should make noise. Cooking meat should take longer while allowing you to do other things in the meantime (could it be possible to place them in the fireplace's gear menu and cook them that way?). This is to make the process itself riskier and more visible for other players. Animals should be much rarer, and the amount of meat should probably be lowered a bit. Bottles should give more 'fullness' than soda cans. Chlorine Pills should be added to the water acquiring process. These will be found in grocery stores and hospitals in rather large bundles, having like 10-20 uses per bottle. This will require the survivalist to enter larger towns to survive. If Chlorine Pills aren't used, you risk sickness and death. Requires antibiotics from the hospital. Running and fighting Zombies should increase consumable requirements significantly! Increase the spawn rate of bear traps - they should be used to catch animals - create an animal with a walking path across the trap if the trap is placed in the woods. This should not be a 100% thing however, but should have a higher percentage of producing results than simply meeting an animal out in the field every 5 minutes. Placing traps close to each other should diminish the percentage of finding anything to make the survivalist run greater distances. Add fishing maybe? to make the food acquisition process more interesting and varied - have fishing bait in the grocery stores and ports/huts by the sea/lake - once again make it percentage based, nothing should be certain. Animals should be scared of players - very scared. This would require the player to use rifle ammunition to kill animals, creating yet another incentive to visit towns and farms for the survivalist (to find ammo). The animals, when seeing the player, should run in the opposite direction as fast as possible until they despawn. When eating or drinking a can, add an empty can to the ground. This will work as a sign that a player has been there. Blood: Smaller blood packs should be added which are usable by an individual player - only healing something like 5k blood. Another incentive for the player to visit hospitals and military bases. Meat should only heal 250 blood, just like cans. Blood should regenerate over time, very very slowly, since it will now be difficult to restore health by exterior means. Heat: Warming at a fireplace should take much longer - making the process more risky. Fireplaces should produce more smoke. Heat packs should be rare and effective - a PvP'ers dream. Cold weather/wind/altitude degree changes should be added to increase the role of this mechanic. A thermometer should be added to the game. Weapons: All weapon spawn rates should be decreased by a bit, just to make them a bit rarer. Larger weapons should be less effective against players to facilitate firefight scenarios. Less high-tier weapons, more low-tier - this will allow players to be more open at the prospect of spending ammunition on Zombies. Axes should have a lower spawn rate, like matches now. Increase Crowbar spawn rate to take the Axe's place as a first weapon. Axe's should require a sharpener to restore their magazine. Obviously the magazine size should be limited to about 100, and chopping wood should remove 10 'bullets' from it. Increase 'shaking' during aiming to make shooting harder - will make firefights last longer (simulating lack of experience with the firearm - stabilize sight after a certain amount of shots to simulate experience gain?) - will deplete ammo quicker, making ammo more valuable. Zombies: Zombies should not respawn as frequently as they do. It should be allowed to clear an area almost completely - however, there should be more of them each time they spawn. Zombies should be travelling in packs at random places, especially travelling through woods. This is to increase the difficulty of living in the woods, so you can never let your guard down. Zombies should sometimes be walking along the road between towns. Vehicles: Increase the amount of vehicles, especially in the larger coastal towns, in an attempt to allow players to travel by car a bit more frequently. I never ever see a vehicle travelling on the roads. They should still be rare though. Increase the amount of bicycles, these shouldn't be too rare, if we go with realism that is - helps with the fun of the game. Sprinting: Sprinting should be a temporary boost - getting tired / stamina system should be implanted. This will make sure the player can't keep running FOREVER. These changes would mean that instead of requiring 4 relatively easily acquired items to survive, one now needs: Axe (rare) or wood (now easily found) Matches (obtainable, but limited) Bottles Chlorine Pills (dangerous to acquire - dangerous to ignore) Hunting Knife Traps (to catch animals) Rifle (to catch animals + defend against random packs of Zombies in the forests) Blood packs (unless a player can catch a ton of animals, which shouldn't be too easily done) These things together with the higher level of consumption needed, would make for quite a hectic survival experience. Yet you are still able to find safe ground if you have enough space in your inventory + can find all of the necessary components. Anything else I can add? feel free to post your 2 cents / changes to the list. Sorry for any misspellings, etc. English is not my first language. If you see a typo feel free to point it out so I can fix it. TL;DR: Survivors have absolutely no challenges in the game - we need more survivor-focused gameplay, while still retaining the possibility for hardcore PvP'ing.

To people who disagree with anything at all, could you perhaps tell me what you disagree with, so I am able to actually defend the suggestions or maybe change them in the main post? This is referring to the OP. :)

The problem with boiling the water is that pots would not need to be 'refilled' - and the non-rarity of the item would mean that it should be found everywhere, making survival too easy. However, we can theorize that a pot is too heavy for carrying it around all the time, meaning that pills would be the obvious choice. Sorry to shoot your suggestion down, i think your idea makes a lot of sense, but it won't contribute to making survival any harder or more substantial. Unless ofc you can add some form of ingredient into the mix which needs refilling in the cities/towns. Wow thank you for the positive words, flattered. :) Glad you liked the ideas, and yes, I hadn't even thought about what fleeing animals would mean for the PvP metagame: being warned because of the fleeing. I don't know these forums too well, but do devs read the suggestions? I see that A TON of threads are being made - mostly shitty unnecessary suggestions too - which might hinder the possible exposure. :/ Anyone have any ideas to increase dev awareness of the thread, maybe even getting a dev reply? I agree 100% with the fatigue aspect, and it would be SOOOO easy to implement since ACRE (another Arma2 mod) already has a fatigue system which could probably be borrowed, it even has a weight system which could also be ported over with great effects. The dangers of 'spawning' is that it is impossible to secure a position if zeds just randomly spawn AFTER you have secured an area. I think a proper mechanic would be to have groups of zeds strolling around the forests, really just randomly patrolling - rather than being player triggered. This way you could secure a forest and make it a base, but it would certainly still be possible for zeds to suddenly show up because they just happened to walk past that point. I don't know, I wouldn't really like it if the forests were heavily infested, but would rather just have THE POSSIBILITY of meeting zeds in packs, simply because it would create the need for constant lookout. :) The idea with sound attracting zeds would normally occur if a pack of zeds was close, which should create the same dangers for lone snipers as you're seeking in your reply. Hopefully I wasn't too negative concerning your suggestion - I agree that there should be zeds, but I definitely still think that there should be a lot less chance of meeting zeds in a forest than in the city/at buildings. :) Having zeds patrol the roads would also be a great mechanic, since it would require scouting when crossing roads - we could have zeds go from town to town, which would make the whole affair so much more dynamic and interesting, even though it wouldn't do too much in terms of gameplay, other than making everything a bit less secure.

Thank you very much.

Those were some very different kind of suggestions - all cool though, but not too game changing. :) I actually thought about showering, since the lack of hygiene should make people sick. Therefore, soap and the ability to 'wash' when standing in a pool of water, would be pretty cool. Even right clicking a bottle and say 'wash' instead of 'drink'... Maybe maybe, lets hope a dev sees the thread and reacts, although it looks like it will die and be forgotten in a sea of crappy suggestions. ;/ Everyone please bump the thread and like if you agree with the main suggestion. :)

That is one way to do it I guess. :P Honestly though, I'd rather just look for weapons at military bases as a suicide survivor than imagining game mechanics, at least that way I will feel like I'm progressing AND getting a small amount of excitement out of it. :/

Also, that would be rather time consuming to add, unless they hire another dude to write an entire plotline for the universe. Honestly it isn't needed, but if the devs find the time, sure why not. Not now though, there are more pressing issues at hand.

While I agree that there is a certain realism to the current situation, I feel that the changes I suggested won't interfere with the realism, but will actually make it even more realistic. The difference between what you are doing already (putting yourself in danger because you are bored) would be achievable with my changes as well, the difference would be that you would actually put yourself in danger for a reason: to refresh supplies (matches, sharpener, chloride pills, etc). What we need as survivors is more stuff to do that has a purpose for our choosen gamestyle, which is surviving. Hence, we need a reason to move around in order to find additional crucial supplies to survive further - rather than going into towns and become targets simply out of boredom. :) EDIT: And thanks for liking my suggestions so far guys, hopefully a dev will give his 2 cents on some of the ideas as well. I know some of them are very simple to do, whereas others are a lot harder.

My point in the post is that a survivor will NEVER need to go to a populated area. He can stay in the forest all alone forever, hence avoiding all bandit risk - only freak accidents will put a survivor in danger.

So you agree with the rest of the post? Added this to weapon changes: Correct?