Vickers' Vigorous Verbose Venting: Vexations, Villains, Veracity of Vile Verbiage

[Malleovic 3]

Because the first thing any utterly insane responsible member of the community must do is post a list of suggestions with only a cursory, half-hearted check using the search function, maybe even subsequently putting an obnoxious link to them in their sig!

Having utterly no familiarity with the underlying principles of the engine, modding, or any of the other very important details, let me blunder through an explanation of things that I believe would improve the mod. Feel free to flame, criticize, bluster, banter, and in general rip these suggestions to shreds:

1. It makes utterly no sense and feels completely "inauthentic" (which is apparently the new acceptable buzzword for whatever the fuck this mod is aiming for since those members of the community who apparently can't deal with "nontraditional game dynamics" (speaking of buzzwords) pushed 'rocket-from-whose-keystrokes-flow-sacred-quotable-gospel-for-whatever-argument-needs-boosting-this-minute' to reject the word "realism") WHEN encountering a lone infected, a newly-spawned survivor can do literally nothing but run, hide, get eaten, or find a gun. The infected aren't burdened by pain, they have apparently limitless stamina (granted, this really should be a biological impossibility for both survivors and infected alike), but they are still built out of human parts. Given suitable luck/a tool/the right situation, the average human can bludgeon another average human to death, or at least push them to the ground and kick their head open against a rock. This is in my opinion the most glaring feature completely left out (not glitched, which is another story entirely) of the mod, along with the lack of common items that we could use for this the glorious purposes of righteous bashing and slicing (baseball bat, crowbar, knife, machete). Risky business, but fun AND authentic (SCOOOOOOORE).

2. Remove the murder counter. There should be no visible "score" except days spent alive (and we're talking real time here, not just how long the character has existed). This will mitigate a good deal of the so called (and often whined about) "unnecessary" amounts of PvP, because players will have less to pat themselves on the back with when just shooting people for the fuck of it. Personally though, even if it does't change a thing, I don't care. I have no problem with the threat of wanton, senseless murder. It's the apocalypse, and people are animals. If you want to appeal to your fellow player's sense of humanity, go right ahead and talk to them directly. That's exactly how much weight it has.

3. On the flip side, zeds need to spawn much more densely in high-value loot areas. This will throw into starker relief the natural, UN-CONTRIVED (there should be no other type) advantage of working as a team: raiding parties, even organized on the fly, will have a much higher chance of getting good loot and sole actors will have a much lower chance of the same.

4. And please nerf somehow (rarity, effectiveness, etc.) the smoke grenade/campfire/etc. diversionary style tactics of kiting what could be a massive horde of terrifying zeds into a massive horde of harmlessly stampeding morons chasing after a hissing noise. It shouldn't be as much of a surefire way to allow a sole survivor to do the work of a whole team as it currently is. Like I said, teams have a natural, "authentic" (there's the magic word of the week again!) advantage, and it shouldn't be cheapened so easily.

In a shameless effort to frustrate everyone, I'll probably update this list semi-regularly with interesting things that may or may not be useful edits or additions to the current suggestions. In fact, it may or may not even be interesting!

Do your worst.

[Publik 404]

You're well spoken and eloquent and I love you

Hows that?

Edit: Also, your title is 3 characters too long. Trying to reply adds "RE:" (3 chars), making it impossible to use quick reply. While I appreciate the ability to use exactly the limit, please edit your post's title :)

[Malleovic 3]

Edit: Also' date=' your title is 3 characters too long. Trying to reply adds "RE:" (3 chars), making it impossible to use quick reply. While I appreciate the ability to use exactly the limit, please edit your post's title :)[/quote']

Done and done, though I actually like the nonsensical subject line that your reply had. Slda! Nnnnting!

[Publik 404]

Edit: Also' date=' your title is 3 characters too long. Trying to reply adds "RE:" (3 chars), making it impossible to use quick reply. While I appreciate the ability to use exactly the limit, please edit your post's title :)[/quote']

Done and done, though I actually like the nonsensical subject line that your reply had. Slda! Nnnnting!

Who summons the great Nnnnting?!?!?

[duddbudda 33]

1) ARMA cannot do melee

2) afaik this is ultimately the objective, but it's an alpha and the debug monitor is valuable for pinning down bugs

people like myself will be unaffected: I keep a diary of my kills and deaths (not just numerical - each is detailed) - in maybe 150 hours (five weeks of addiction) I have killed 38 players, been killed 13 times, died to glitches eight times, died to zeds four times and the respawn button twice

3) I prefered it back in 1.5.7 (iirc) when zeds spawned 'too much' everywhere, thousands didn't :(

4) in my experience, smokes' radius of effect is too small and the throw animation takes too long for a lone player to safely decouple himself from his train

smokes can troll chaps stuck in one-door buildings or to save a player stuck in a tent in stary, otherwise they're fail

[Publik 404]

Melee ought to be possible. It's really just a gun with a different attack (or recoil) animation and an extremely short damage falloff rate. Much in the same way the zeds work.

[Malleovic 3]

1) ARMA cannot do melee

I've heard this' date=' and I've also heard that this is not true(here specifically).

2) afaik this is ultimately the objective' date=' but it's an alpha and the debug monitor is valuable for pinning down bugs

people like myself will be unaffected: I keep a diary of my kills and deaths (not just numerical - each is detailed) - in maybe 150 hours (five weeks of addiction) I have killed 38 players, been killed 13 times, died to glitches eight times, died to zeds four times and the respawn button twice[/quote']

At least you're going about it like a proper psychopath and doing the work yourself, rather than just relying on the interface. How very AUTHENTIC! ($$$$) No sarcasm intended, I'm just harping on that word as much as I can.

[Blaaaaaaag 75]

4) in my experience' date=' smokes' radius of effect is too small and the throw animation takes too long for a lone player to safely decouple himself from his train

[/quote']

Do smokes distract zeds that are already aggro-ing? I didn't think they did, but if they do, that ought to be changed. They should most definitely be more interested in an easy meal.

[duddbudda 33]

@bla&c

yes, and no it should not be changed, especially now zeds can lose track of their prey

@publik

gonna have to link the exact post proving me wrong, cause all I can be arsed with in that 23 page thread are the dancing crusaders (awesome) and scrolly-wheel 'melee' interactions (worse than useless for fighting zeds)

[Strategos (DayZ) 190]

lol good post. You forgot to put the link in your sig though!

[Publik 404]

@publik

gonna have to link the exact post proving me wrong' date=' cause all I can be arsed with in that 23 page thread are the dancing crusaders (awesome) and scrolly-wheel 'melee' interactions (worse than useless for fighting zeds)

[/quote']

Well, I don't have a link. However, you can make a "gun" that looks like an axe and "recoils" by having you swing the axe, and "shoots" an invisible projectile that dies off after a meter, much in the same way that weapons lose damage at range.

[haviv[3rdid] 57]

This is what I found for ArmA2 melee

Funny!

Basically it's an illusion. They attack like zombies but the swords are attached to them.

[Malleovic 3]

gonna have to link the exact post proving me wrong' date=' cause all I can be arsed with in that 23 page thread are the dancing crusaders (awesome) and scrolly-wheel 'melee' interactions (worse than useless for fighting zeds)

[/quote']

It's still a far cry from "ArmA cannot do melee"

[Strategos (DayZ) 190]

You cant just say Arma doesn't do Melee.

Even if its hard to do well in a mod Rocket works for BI, the game will most likely become a standalone entity at some point.

The mod has already generated millions for the company.

There's no reason they couldn't divert a few coders and alter the core game code.

Id love to be able to sneak up behind people and knock them out and steal there stuff without killing them.

[duddbudda 33]

everyone saying 'hurr durr sandy arma clearly does melee' presents either a proximity triggered animation and damage script or a context-menu interaction

the former is useless to a player, betraying ARMA's entirely skill dependant style

the latter is useful for stealthing, nothing else

[Publik 404]

everyone saying 'hurr durr sandy arma clearly does melee' presents either a proximity triggered animation and damage script or a context-menu interaction

the former is useless to a player' date=' betraying ARMA's entirely skill dependant style

the latter is useful for stealthing, nothing else

[/quote']

Nuh uh. I presented what amounts to an extremely short range shotgun that pretends to be a melee weapon.

[duddbudda 33]

Nuh uh. I presented what amounts to an extremely short range shotgun that pretends to be a melee weapon.

the idea sounds OK

so why aren't there any mods that do it?

[Malleovic 3]

Nuh uh. I presented what amounts to an extremely short range shotgun that pretends to be a melee weapon.

the idea sounds OK

so why aren't there any mods that do it?

I'm not sure. It could be because none of the people who are big enough enthusiasts about ArmA to spend the time creating a mod are also particularly interested in combat necessitating this kind of melee. ArmA's just not that type of game.

Nevertheless, this is a very poor reason to assume that "ArmA can't do melee", let alone such a particular type. Even worse is that this has been parroted again and again as if it were some kind of definitive fact, without acknowledging the lack of widely-known information about the feasibility of melee. Considering that individuals who post suggestion threads (like these) are generally newcomers to DayZ (like myself), and those who reply have generally been around the mod and its forum for a bit longer, it is easy to see why such prevailing assumptions remain: because someone said so at some point.

I can't stress enough that I'm not talking about everyone or everything in the discussion forum, and that I'm not necessarily accusing you (Sandy State Phantom) of doing that here. But you posted with an air of certainty on the subject of melee's feasibility in ArmA, and you have not provided any solid evidence to support that certainty.

I suppose that given the average level of discourse I've observed around here, I should be happy that at least you're civil and coherent. Thank you for that!

Moving on, can anyone provide some kind of solid argument, based on either direct experience or providing reference to someone who has, that melee is unfeasible in the ArmA engine?

[duddbudda 33]

the evidence is not solid, but it has convinced me:

my first post here asked if melee was possible

someone told me it was not

so I went to armaholic, researching melee mods

there aren't any

[Malleovic 3]

Yes; like I said, I suspect it's because most ArmA modders aren't interested in creating a mod that necessitates some form of unscripted realtime melee. This one does, and already has it as well (for the zeds).

[Xyro 9]

Well looky looky hereeeeeee...just remember. ARMA 2 can't do melee....

Edit - Simply changed the hyper link to an embded video for easy access...like a dress ;)

[Malleovic 3]

Well looky looky hereeeeeee...just remember. ARMA 2 can't do melee....

I think one of his points was that a melee system like the one in the video above wouldn't really contribute anything to DayZ and that a better system (realtime, unscripted melee attacks) must be impossible because he couldn't find any other mods that had it.

Personally I think the game would be better off with ANY additional melee at all, but obviously the latter type would be the most valuable for gameplay purposes.

Does anybody have any official news on whether or not a realtime melee system is possible? I've only heard doubters, but nothing solid...

[Xyro 9]

Have you seen this katana mod and the 'crusader' battle for Arma 2? I may have seen the crusader fight in this thread...it's honestly getting hard to keep up with all these threads I'm visiting.

Just sick and tired of people saying melee can't be done, stop being a fucking sheep people. Seriously, I've only been around Arma 2 for two or so weeks, after being introduced to DayZ and that's all I've ever played. But it seems like I can find/know more than people who have been playing Arma 2/DayZ for god knows how long.

I'm not trying to sound like a know it all, I'm far from it. Just open your eyes and do a tad bit of research. This is obviously pointed to all the nay sayers and sheeps in the herd.

Being a sheep = Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad

---

Yes, this is where I saw the crusader mod. Benjamin on P2 posted a link, but I'll post the video here, to have all three, obviously working melee mods for Arma 2 in one spot.

Call me an asshole...I know the truth :D

[Malleovic 3]

And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is what we're looking for.

I actually feel a bit guilty (not at all actually) about talking about it still because it might be exactly like what we're getting.

[Xyro 9]

And THAT' date=' ladies and gentlemen, is what we're looking for.

I actually feel a bit guilty (not at all actually) about talking about it still because it might be exactly like what we're getting.

Thread chaining ftw :P

http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=14596&page=3 (Possible future uses for the hatchet)