Some Ideas

[lappy1987 0]

Ello all,

Don't hate me if some of these suggestions have already been made, so many threads it's difficult to read through every single one without spending a week doing it. :D

1) Natural Night Vision

It is a fact that in pitch black darkness your eyes will adjust to allow you to have some basic natural night vision. It usually takes 10-20 minutes for your eyes to adjust, but in the process you'll only be able to see black and white (read about the rods and cones in the eyes). During this time you normally need to avoid being exposed to light, otherwise your eyes will adjust back, and you'll need to wait another 10-20 minutes before you can gain your natural night vision.

Most people I play with, including myself, currently adjust the gamma/brightness to have some ability to see in the dark, but I suppose that could be considered a form of exploiting.

Anyway, maybe it would be a good idea to bring this element into the game, where in the pitch black your eyes will adjust after 15 minutes to allow you to see 25% more in the dark (as time progresses through the 15 minute period, your ability to see slowly increases to the 25% maximum). Whenever you look at a source of light, or travel through a lit up area, on returning to the pitch black they will reset and you'll need to wait this period of time again to gain your full "natural night vision". This could add an extra element to playing the game at night time.

2) Humanity System and Medical Items

At the moment you can effectively "farm" humanity through shooting a friend until they bleed and then patching them up continuously with blood packs at a medical facility. It took me less than 10 minutes to gain hero status, and not much longer for friends to gain hero status from -5,000 humanity. This, in my eyes, is effectively an exploit that experienced players and groups can utilise to gain the hero buffs.

I believe the system should be adjusted to implement cool downs on the humanity gain from medical applications, such as 15 minutes per item per player (you should still get the humanity gain four times if you blood bag four different people consecutively).

3) Morphine Mends Broken Bones???

I guess many people have already mentioned this one, but I see a different way morphine could be used.

Painkillers should be a short term shaking solution, while morphine should be a longer term solution. Say 5 minutes for painkillers, 30 minutes for morphine, or painkillers reduce the shaking effect partly while morphine fixes it completely for a set amount of time. Pain naturally subsides by itself in the real world, so maybe the shaking should only last for 30 minutes to 1 hour at maximum before it naturally wears off?

Splints are definitely a great idea to be introduced for fixing broken bones, obtained from medical facilities, converted from scrap metal, and give an option when using the hatchet to "harvest make-shift splint" alongside "harvest fire wood".

Maybe there should also be moaning and groaning sounds (that attract zombies, make you a lot easier to hear) coupled with the shaking and broken bones, of which only morphine can cure (we've all seen the WW2 films where an injured soldier is screaming "mummy", but quickly quietens down once given morphine).

Overall this would mean that on breaking your legs the ultimate fix would be to apply a splint and take morphine, or periodically take painkillers until the pain timer runs out.

4) Grass + Prone is a Huge Disadvantage versus Snipers

In the real world what would you do if you came under sniper fire? You'd dive on the ground and hide in the grass. In DayZ you're still very easy to spot due to the grass not rendering at distance, so while you can't see anything due to the grass being in your face, you stand out like a sore thumb to anyone looking in your direction at distance.

Most graphics cards are going to die if you render the grass a huge distance, so this is out of the question unless the game wants to lose a lot of players who can't invest in a top-end system.

The solutions I can think of for grass rendering would be:

- Keep the rendering exactly as it is, but reduce the grass height by 75% so you can see above it while prone, but still give the illusion that you aren't just lieing down on a textured flat surface. On top of this you could then make specific areas permanently render the full size grass.

- Get rid of automatic grass rendering and make specific areas on the map render the grass at all times (e.g. 25% of an open field or forest would render the grass in the same areas at all times, while the remaining 75% would just be a "textured flat surface" such as mud/soil).

- Make all permanent vegetation and trees render grass a certain radius from them at all times, so each piece of vegetation/tree permanently renders grass around it.

- Any combination of the above.

5) Farming

This is probably being looked at as part of the crafting system for DayZ standalone, and probably a bit too ambitious for the current DayZ mod, but I think it would be great to be able to grow your own vegetables and fruits as a source of food on par with cooked meat. Seeds could be obtained from supermarkets, farms/barns and naturally growing plants out in the wild.

Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope I haven't duplicated many ideas that have already been posted and please provide your agreements and disagreements with these ideas with backed up reasons!

Rgds,

Lappy