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Flying across the map in less than 5 minutes isn't an issue for me. It doesn't offer any real advantages in and of itself in terms of being able to affect the situation on the ground. However, the ability to deploy folks inconsequentially and the ease of spotting things is what is at fault here. You're muddling two very different things - being able to traverse terrain rapidly... and being able to spot things easily. Camps/vehicles having the ability to be camouflaged by the folks on the ground, or having smaller storage alternatives (i.e. persistent backpacks) would work wonders. As would remedying the issues that I listed in the OP. The issue with spotting things, is that the folks on the ground (with regard to tents and vehicles) have no alternative means of hiding their things. Likewise, making them more difficult to get up and running isn't insignificant. If they're less-likely to be in the air at any given time, they're less likely overall to be doing the things you're saying.

Please tell me how you could execute helicopters that would not allow people to fly across the entire map in less than 5 minutes, see *MOST* camps/vehicles on the way, and that WOULDN'T ruin gameplay/make them a waste of time. No matter how difficult you make them to fly, or repair, or maintain, or how rare you make them, they will ALWAYS offer incredible speed/visibility. That's the nature of helicopters. There's a reason IRL helicopters are used to search for fleeing suspects, or to heli-lift people out of dangerous situations... Because THAT'S WHAT THEY DO. They are fast. They can hover. They have vertical take off and landing. They provide visibility from a birds eye view. End of story. That's why they're "OP". Edit: Not to mention, in a game focused around "survival", they really have no place. This game is supposed to invoke feelings of being a lone (or small group) of vulnerable survivors in a massive expanse of wilderness and danger... ...Not of being an elite military unit seeking and destroying.

There are a few good places to hide tents, and a lot of good places to hide stashes.. hiding vehicles however is another story. ATV's, bikes, and motorbikes may survive, and there's a good strategy for hiding the V3S to the untrained eye, but most of the better vehicles are pretty easy to spot no matter where you hide them. I agree though, and I'm aware of spots that sound similar to yours. There are a couple places on the map (I can think of 3-4 off the top of my head) where almost nobody goes, ever.. 1. Too many zeds 2. No payoff.. very few loot spawns 3. No buildings you can enter to avoid zeds 4. Either unmarked on the map, or out of the way of the normal loot routes, so no reason for anyone to pass through. These are great spots for tents/stashes, and the occasional low value vehicle (like an ATV, for example.)

Me too..without vehicles Berenzino is the quickest way to get player interaction.

A couple of counter-points 1: "Everyone you played against was noobs, and that's why they didn't find your camp." Wrong. We didn't hide our camp in debug, and we didn't hide it on the border of the map, and we didn't hide it in "obvious" spots. I can't give away exact locations, but suffice it to say that there were only 3 ways our camp would be found; -Hackers (most common) -Lucky noobs who get lost and stumble upon it (never happened..) -Someone who owned another helicopter (which we removed the possibility of) Our hiding spots were not spots you would go looking for a heli... Nor were they on top of buildings. Furthermore, there are different spots which are good for different heli's. The Littlebirds we would hide separately from the Huey and the Mi17 because the Littlebirds could be hidden inside of actual forest, which made them that much more difficult to find. If our huey/mi17 got stolen, we would just get the BLB and hunt it back down, if it wasn't destroyed. 2. Most people suck at flying heli's and often crash them or get shot down.. If this happens, we would simply be ready with a new set of parts, and wait for them to respawn. If you know the restart cycle of the server, it's easy to predict when the heli will respawn. 3. Re: "Most camps are empty." That's why you always destroy tents/stashes when you find them.. So that you know any tents/stashes you find on your regular server are new, and thus usually contain loot, or are so new that they contain nothing.. in which case you leave them for 1-2 days, then return, rob them, and smash them. 4. Re: "It's fair play.." Yeah, it's fair play in the mod, but that doesn't make it fun. Part of what makes DayZ fun and exciting as a new player is building yourself up from nothing, to having a camp. People only have so much patience.. It's not that they will quit immediately upon losing 1 vehicle/camp.. But if they spent 8 hours hunting down supplies to get a vehicle, then finally get one, hide it, and then come back the next day and it's gone.. they may do this 2-3 more times before finally giving up and not quitting the game, just quitting the server. I don't blame them. I would too. 5. Re: "Heli's/vehicles only last 1-2 play sessions anyway, otherwise they're stolen/destroyed." Only if a. You are bad at hiding them b. You do not already control all 4 helicopters c. Someone else on the server owns a helicopter d. The server is EXTREMELY populated (60 players regularily, like US3480). 6."It's dickish to destroy tents/vehicles, but if that's how you wanna play, go for it." Yeah, it's dickish.. But if you don't do it, someone else will.. This is exactly why heli's are bad. Normally, if I am running around on foot (or in a car/truck), and I find a tent, it's a special treat and/or the person sucked at hiding it and it deserves to get smashed. However, if I am in a helicopter, there is literally no way you're hiding your camp from me. 7. "I don't believe that you had all the heli's on the map for that long, unless everyone you played against sucked." Nope.. We did.. And the server was populated, and there were plenty of good groups of players on our server. We went to battle with them many times.. I have about a dozen people that can attest to the fact that we did, indeed, control the map for that long. 8. The hiding spots on the map are only going to become fewer and fewer.. With all of the additions of new buildings/cities, it's going to be very difficult for people to hide tents/vehicles for very long, because more of the map is going to be active, especially when 100+ player servers are a reality... This actually favors people who have heli's even more.

The only real "severe" issue with choppers was the ability to see things you shouldnt due to the un-rendered foliage when flying. all the other stuff was pretty much a universal issue to all vehicles but again, not game breaking at all. As the only vehicle that could shoot back however; its ammo count should persist rather then being a full clip after restart. it actually makes it worth loot farming for chopper ammo. it's called hardcore. all the other issues tho are valid- especially with regards to the "god view" due to stuff not rendering.

Yeah, massive vehicle hoarder. We were playing in a group of 8, and since we couldn't fit everyone in the cars we needed other vehicles for raiding camps or NWAF. Here's a funny video I found (this is my group back when we were bored after getting all these cars that we decided to raid NWAF) - pretty funny, would've never happened if there were helis. Oh yeah, my mic didn't record but you get the gist.

Funny thing is; almost everyone from the SA that ive introduced to the mod have preferrred the mod's gameplay. infact, i think the only ones who have a problem with the mod's vehicles are the bear-grylls like solo survivalists. the helis have turned the north of this particular server into a warzone in which the 3 clans there are compeeting for vehicle supremacy. This is interesting gameplay, all involved are enjoying it. the thrill if stealing from and trashing your rivals' base and the rage of having it done to you. dayZ is in Apocalypse that happens to have zombies. everyone seems stuck on this dillusion that people just gater together all friendly like in dark times. Please, go look at any country/state where there has been a total collapse. people do work together- but they also divide into sects based upon varying principles or backgrounds. Clans/Squads are the Online gaming equivalent of this. All i can say is the northern vehicle wars are keeping the major clans occupied with eachother and not (for the most part) shooting fresh spawns.

Don't be obtuse. I'm saying that it takes effort to do so, it's not a trivial task to go around a map and destroy every single vehicle and tent. So if you're investing that much time into it, what's the problem? That's something to do. You've also given those players something to do as well, as now they need to remake their camps and get new vehicles. Vehicle hoarding/tent bases are actually sorta detrimental to gameplay if there's low risk of losing them. My group usually didn't bother going around fucking up every single tent and vehicle we came across because what's the point? But if you're going to be a "dick" and make that your sole purpose every single night, to go wreck everyone else's stuff, then wonder why your server is dying then I don't know what to say. I personally have no gripe at all if that's what you choose to do, I believe all playstyles are valid, but realize the consequence is obvious. It's a sandbox, I don't see a problem with the freedom to completely fuck it up. Some other players could always actually get together to stop you any ways.

Yeah, I stopped for camps/vehicles at first. After 30th empty camp I stopped doing that. Actually, if I am flying in a helicopter it means that I am going to die in a crash so I don't need anything. And keeping a helicopter over the course of multiple game sessions is something that never happens, nowhere to hide it on such a small map. Same goes for your camp, it would be looted in 3 days tops, with helis or without them. If it isn't the case with you then you are playing with noobs as Bororm said. About the game being supposed to be a survival horror, well, I am not scared so it isn't a horror and surviving is pretty easy if you know what to do. Ok, you survived, now what? Boring. Why limit the game to survival when it can be much more and still have your precious survival.

If it's really too much effort to get out of the heli to check vehicles or a camp you found, then how the fuck have you managed to play the stand alone without one... Holy shit.

I've actually played a lot in a group with helis and while they are very good for spotting vehicles/tents as mentioned, you also need to invest the time to actually go down and either check or break said things. I'd argue they're actually beneficial to a server for clearing up hidden vehicles and getting them back into circulation. Also, it is not hard to check the map without a heli. It takes a lot longer for sure, but if you've got a vehicle it's not that bad. The map is not as big as people like to pretend it is, and as mentioned the popular hiding spots become known and are obvious. So again, unless we're talking about hiding shit way out off the map I don't see the big problem. Also, who the hell logs off because they died to a group using a helicopter? I would rather not design the game around those players, just as the game should not be designed around all the people who cry about KOS. These are the types of players who are going to quit regardless. The only situation where not having a helicopter and trying to get a helicopter is an extreme disadvantage is when people used to land them on top of the castles or buildings that you couldn't reach without one. However, you could still blow it up at least.

How do you know? When they're upgradable they might add offroad tires, or there might be quads/off road vehicles. When they're first introduced they'll probably be broken enough to go up near vertical hills anyway, maybe even go through trees and whatnot. Yeah I'm aware that that's the point of a tank. But it's not the point of a zombie survival game good lord... Ok yeah let's talk about that, obviously you have limited shells, limited fuel and limited everything. Why in the fuck, in a zombie apocalypse, would you be using a tank that makes a huge amount of noise and an even bigger amount of noise when firing when it's going to attract every single zombie in a mile or more radius? You would mow down a few, easy but then you'd run out of fuel and have to sit in your metal coffin and die or go out and get eaten. They are not viable or realistic in a survival situation against zombies, at all. A well stocked army could maybe survive but a bunch of asshats who woke up on a beach would just get mutilated. So there's another reason why they make no sense to be in the base game.

I gather you've never played with a group with a heli. People LEAVE the server because of the ultimate power that you wield with your heli. The game becomes boring because nobody wants to play on a server where things that you work towards - vehicles or camps - are found within couple of hour by the all seeing heli. Also, trust me, going through all the possible places (on foot) where there COULD be a heli can take you a LOT of hours. The helis might be spread out or all in one place, good luck finding them when you don't have one.

Unless you guys were sticking your camp out in the debug plains (something that was fixed any ways, or at least any private hive dealt with it nicely) then you were just playing with not so clever folk, because as you said there are only so many places to hide a helicopter so I fail to believe that every day you had control over all helicopters on a populated server, or that your camp was never found, unless again, you were just very lucky with playing against "noobs" for lack of a better term =P In either case, if you were spending several hours each day flying around to destroy/capture other vehicles/helicopters, then what's the issue? That's something for you to do, it's something for other people to do. We can assume base building is going to be much more elaborate than tents in the SA and we can hope that they'll be created with helicopters and vehicles in mind. What's the issue. These sort of "end game" conflicts are exactly the sort of stuff the game needs. People quitting because their camp got destroyed are going to quit regardless. That's the type of people they are, quitters. Should this game be designed around quitters?

Read the post above yours. Obviously, we knew/know how to play the game. Us killing other players was not a problem. We only used the Mi-17/Huey to kill maybe a handful of players. Most of our time spent in helicopters was spent picking people up, dropping people off, searching for heli crashes, and searching for other peoples camps. If you didn't stop for other peoples vehicles/tents, then you are ignorant of how over-powered a helicopter is when it comes to doing that. DayZ is supposed to be a "survival horror" game.. With an emphasis on "survival".. Survival involves starting out with nothing, testing yourself against the zombies, other players, and the elements/dangers of the world.. Once you become better at surviving, the next step is setting up a camp and settling in on a server.. Then finding vehicles and using vehicles to travel faster and get more things done. If every time you attempt to set up a camp or get a vehicle some asshole (me) who has possession of all the helicopters on the map flies over your camp and destroys/steals all of your shit, you will quickly get tired of starting from scratch and you will find another server to play on. Hence: Helicopters are bad for DayZ.

Like I said in my other thread, helicopters basically: Nullify distanceMake getting from point A to B completly safe (unless you're flying like a complete spas 10m over NWAF and are wondering why you're getting shot at) - you can't take down a moving heli unless you have a .50 cal and get a lucky shot. All this 7.62 bullshit only works when they're auto hovering. Allow a group to control the map by finding all the camps and vehicles in a matter of minutes - you can just log on after a server restart and fly over every vehicle spawn to see if something's there, or just find every camp on the map and GG.Fact that most of the ground and trees do not render when you're in a heli means looking for players or camps is just too easy.

Idiots and crybabies are going to ruin this game for me. How anything can be overpowered when everyone have equal chances to get their hands on it? It is not easy to spot players unless they are completely clueless. Tents and vehicles - yes. But if I have a heli then I wouldn't bother stopping at every tent and every vehicle. I spent many many hours playing the mod, probably close to 1000 hours, that includes mods like Overwatch (lots of helis) and I can't remember being killed a single time by a helicopter. It probably happened, but if I can't even remember (I don't drink or use substances) it is clearly a rare event and not an issue. I have been shot at by helis many times. I have shot down multiple helis with regular firearms, took over even more of them, been shot down while flying many times, and of course killed many players while flying. And I am not even very good at this game. So I really hate to say these words but to those who cry about helis being overpovered: learn to play. It is very easy to avoid being killed by a heli even after they spot you, unless they have people on the ground, even then it is manageable. BUT, the main point, even being hunted by a heli is FUN, how anyone can not see that. Even if you die, there is a good chance for epicness, and why anyone would say no to that? Instead you prefer to do something apparently much more interesting - collecting beans. What is wrong with you people, you already have boring lives, why do you want a boring game.

*sigh*.. This issue again? Katana, let me explain this to you from the perspective of someone who played the Vanilla mod for over a year, and had control of several heli's over that time. -The problem is NOT parachuting. -The problem is NOT helicopters being used as agents of destruction. Gunner seats were very difficult to use effectively if the helicopter was moving at all. It requires a good pilot and good communication between the pilot and the gunners to even secure a kill. -Helicopters in and of themselves are not "overpowered" in the traditional sense of the word. -The problem was NOT availability of fuel.. Best way to fuel a heli was to get 2-3 players carrying 4 jerry cans each. If you do not have at least 1 person on overwatch, you leave yourself extremely vulnerable to sniper fire, which could result in someone jacking your heli. (It's happened.. a lot) -Heli's and cars are VERY difficult to use in 1st person perspective, due to the horrible FOV in 1st person. It's very difficult to navigate a vehicle in purely 1st person perspective, unless you like running into things and popping your tires.. Or, with Heli's, how do you expect to land? From 1st person perspective it CAN be challenging to know whether you're landing on a flat area or not, and if you're not it could send the heli sliding. Here's the problem.. In the "Vanilla" mod, there were 4 helicopters available. 1. Huey on Skalisky Island 2. Mi-17 at Devils Castle 3. Black Littlebird at Black Mountain 4. Silver Littlebird at NEAF To repair a heli from "completely broken" to "completely fixed", you needed 1 Main Rotor (Hangers, Crash sites) 1 Engine (higher value industrial) 4 Scrap Metal (Low -> High value industrial) 8 Windscreen glass. (Low -> High value industrial) To repair all 4 heli's you needed 4 Main Rotor, 4 Engine, 16 Scrap, 32 Windscreen glass. You can also assume that you would need at least 4 Jerry Cans per heli, preferably 8.. But Jerry Cans could be moved from one vehicle to the other, as long as you had enough on the vehicle you were using to refuel quickly when the need arose. Besides, Jerry Cans were relatively easy to find.. (They spawned in Farm and Industrial loot spawns.) All of this could be farmed over the course of a week, if necessary.. When you have a clan of several friends, if 1-2 of the players dedicate themselves to farming heli parts during the slow periods of server population, you could pretty easily procure all the parts required. So, the clan in question gathers all these parts and stores them in some form of persistent storage (A tent, another vehicle, whatever), and the group scouts out which heli's are at their spawn point... After obtaining all of the parts, they group up, and quickly repair the available helicopter, refuel it in about 10 minutes, and begin searching. First, scout all of the other heli spawns.. If a heli is in its spawn location, repair it, refuel it, and hide it.. Then, fly around the border of the map.. then fly around to all of the common hiding spots (there are only a few dozen).. Then fly over all of the forest on the borders of the map.. Then fly over some of the lesser used hiding spots more inland.. By this point, usually you've found all 4 of the heli's on the map, and it usually only takes a few hours. IF you haven't, someone on the server is very good at hiding a heli, at which point you take a more systematic approach and search every quadrant of the map thoroughly, which may take a few more hours. All of this can be done in one night. Once you have all 4 helicopters in your possession, you can hide all 4 heli's in remote locations and it severely limits the possibility of others finding your camp, because they have no access to heli's themselves. The next biggest threat is offroad vehicles. UAZ, Humvee, 2 White Offroads, Military Offroad, several ATV's. ATV's are the most difficult to control, seeing as they are the most abundant, and are often in other players possession. The Offroad vehicles can either be repeatedly destroyed upon every server restart, or they could simply be gathered up and moved to a hidden location.. you could even hide them with your helis. Hiding your base/vehicles increases in difficulty the more populated the server is on a regular basis, but more experienced players know a few key tricks to hiding vehicles even on populated servers. Once you have control of all the heli's, it becomes a trivial matter to fly around every night and smash camps. And smashing camps ruins server populations and is anti-fun for everyone involved. At one point, I ran with a group of about 5 guys on a populated US Vanilla server, and we maintained control over all of the helicopters and offroad vehicles for a span of 4 months. The only time our camp was found was by hackers. What eventually ended our reign of terror was that one of our trusted friends betrayed us and satchel charged our camp, and used inside knowledge to prevent us from maintaining future camps. Over the span of this 4 months, the average population of the server we played on took a huge crash, and it actually became extremely boring, and ruined the game for us. As long as there are dedicated groups of competitive players, there will be someone who exploits the very fundamental realities of helicopters existing in a game with a map that's the size Chernarus is, and which has other players attempting to keep vehicles/camps.

Hey I have a epoch napf server I just finished adding scripts to and looking for players/groups to come join and help admin. I have full admin tools to use. The sever includes SelfBB, lift/tow, indestructible locked vehicles, Wear zombie guts, EMP storms, indestructible bases, Custom AI missions I made such as harvest randomly generated marijuana fields. Which you can sell to traders and over 20 more, GOD safezones, Custom weather, and much more. NAPF is a great huge map that is perfect for epoch. If anyone wants to come join or help admin talk to me on here or in game and I can add your id to admin tools. Server IP is 192.111.147.34:3302. DrSubos deathhouse. SEE YOU

Wouldn't mind a Russian T-Series chassis used as a base for an improvised APC like the Kangaroo carrier. Would be fun to play around with. (They just need to add shooting from vehicles with rifles. (Seen it in a VBS2 video so it's entirely possible, don't let them lie to you and say it's not.) Or any APC with tires like the LAV just make the main cannon non-functional or blown up or w/e. But a good base for further end game vehicle modifications. It's not like those vehicles have disappeared. I wouldn't mind it, since we'll be getting small improvised explosive devices. I wouldn't mind a few AT launchers with rare as hell ammunition. Hell, make an AT-4 launcher rare as hell spawn, and can ONLY fire 1 shot, then the weapon is useless. (Like real life) I wouldn't mind tanks as long as the main gun can not be used. I don't want to see players leveling structures with the gun, but using the vehicle it's self as an battering ram against fortifications. I think of them as mobile fortress. Protection for the crew but almost 0 combat capability for the endgame.

They weren't overpowered, the people who complain are people who got their tent or vehicles spotted or whatever, but that's bound to happen regardless. Either that or they got rocked by a clan, which could also have happened any ways. But heaven forbid some other people invested more time/effort into getting an advantage over them and that the game isn't about perfectly fair fights. Helicopters are already confirmed, so I'm looking forward to it once again!

nope, i played back when duped AS50s were found all over sniper hills, and i didnt even mention them because they had no place in dayz either. They removed it for good because that. and i dont think they'll bring up an entirely new mechanic for vehicles, as they're struggling hard to even get the engine modifications working right. There's still terrible desync, lag and exploits scattered around the game, and it's already pretty much half a year of alpha, considering that they were working on it for 1 year already before the release.

Well it's was annoying to get killed by hackers but me and my friend had a good laugh. I managed to sneak behind one and knock him unconscious as he talked smack to a new spawn. He did manage to teleport away while unconscious but I had a good laugh. Then of course promptly died from his friends. lol I hope Bohemia Interactive gets all the kinks out of this game. Just imagine how out of control it will get with vehicles. Dayz is a great game and I do enjoy it. Wish Bohemia the best of luck at finding the right people and the right leadership to get this game done.

Can you start a comment without making a vitriolic assumption? Yes, I did play the mod, I stated so... in the OP. And my statement still stands, they can be taken down by small arms. Yes, I do expect they'll re-work the entire helicopter mechanic... because they've said they're reworking vehicles entirely.