DayZ standalone suggestion: Seasonal loot balancing. "Hunger" season, "Cease fire" season, "Zombie infestation" season etc.

[DZR_Mikhail 2424]

This feature is a part of a collection of features about "How to make DayZ harder"

Idea

• Once in some 2-3 month or less\more often a randomly choosen season goes in effect on the server. Lasts for a week.
  
• Makes random unpredictable changes in server balancing and surviving aspect\methods
  
• Safety is only for those, who know how to survive in any particular season, but this comes with experience
  
• Every season has a slight, subtle visual hint in the game, atmospheric change, air thinkening, colour effects to reflect a bit to the nature of a season.
  
  • Very delicate and subtle effects, tweaks, but noticable when sought.
    
  • And this visual, atmospheric change is happening the day before the season starts. So those who knows what's coming after this SIGN can get ready a bit and survive better.
    

"Hunger" season

Visual clue\effect: Game seems a bit greyish, wind sound can change, overall atmosphere is a bit depressing

• Food and drink loot is getting rare.
  
• Stops appearing as loot in zombies.
  
• Never spawns in industrial buildings, only in personal dwellings, but very rare too.
  
• Doesn't affect animals, so meat and huning becomes the main survival aspect.
  
• People are driven out of settlements into the woods for hunt.
  

"Cease fire" season

• The same as above, but the ammo gets rare.
  
• Spawns only at police stations, fire stations and military sites.
  
• Shooting becomes very very expensive. Melee and reusable weapons (arrows) get a value.
  
• Cities and military sites become even more dangerous for those seeking firepower.
  

"Zombie infestation" season

Visual clue\effect: Zombies produce different sounds, more howling, slightly more crazy sounds

• Zombie spawn doubles.
  
• Zombies invade forests too.
  

"Cold" season

Visual clue\effect: Rain is enough, but a vague blue tone can be added to the atmosphere.

• Overall weather is much worse.
  
• Rains are constant. Almost no sunshine.
  
• Temperatures are much lower.
  
• Day is shorter.
  
• Night is extremely cold and requires a shelter.
  
• Infections spread easily.
  
• Requires warming up often.
  
• Heatpacks and campfires get value.
  
• Players seek shelter - more value to houses.
  
• Warm clothing and medicine get value too.
  
• +Vehicles are consuming more fuel and take much more time to start the engine.
  
• +Air transport is having icing problems and is not recommended to fly.
  

"Epidemy" season

Visual clue\effect: Same as hunger is enough

• One infection is randomly chosen.
  
• Zombie melee attack has very great risk of infecting a victim with this infection.
  
• Lower temperatures cause having this infection more often.
  

"Epizootic" season

Visual clue\effect: Animals produce different sounds, a bit more of yelping of dogs, birds cry louder, wolves howl

• Animals are very rare.
  
• Those present have chance of infecting you after consuming their meat.
  
• Predators are more agressive and can infect you after attack.
  

"Dead coast" season

• Player spawn locations are moved to northern mountains.
  

"Fire" season

Visual clue\effect: Everyithing gets slightly yellowish, sun is a bit more brighter, almost no wind or very occasional

• Extreme hot temperatures
  
• Thirst appears much faster.
  
• Canned\Bottled drinks get rare. (not in zombie loot, never in industrial buildings)
  
• Walking in the bright sun without a headwear can get you sunstroke.
  
• Wearing very warm clothes can make you even more fatigue and have a sunstroke.
  
• Running causes more fatigue.
  
• Autmatic weapons get overheated more and jam more frequently.
  
• Foraging is not very effective, plants are dried.
  
• Transport gets overheated and can have engine damage if driven at more than 40-60kmh speed.
  
• Players stay mainly in shadow, in the forests, water sources become vital for survival.
  

Any other ideas?

Edited October 29, 2012 by -=PA=-Mikhail
Clues added.

[kylebeed (DayZ) 12]

Omg This would be so awesome if this was added

you have my beans

[Floff4rn 19]

"Cease fire" season

"Hunger" season

^^

This is gold!

[mr_chabowski@live.co.uk 2416]

If there are hostile predatory animals in the standalone, it would be nice to see bears and wolves leaving the mountains and forests to look for food closer to settlements, during seasons where boars and deer are scarce.

A particularly rainy season could cause a lot of open ground in rural areas, and the wilderness, to become muddy and harder to traverse. (sinking into mud/sliding down hills etc.)

[Hendrus01 6]

Okay, this is an Awesome Idea!

[BwobBwub 660]

Everything on here is very good apart from the dead coast season, i dont htink its right to spawn in the north

[DZR_Mikhail 2424]

NEW:

"Fire" season

• Extreme hot temperatures
  
• Thirst appears much faster.
  
• Canned\Bottled drinks get rare. (not in zombie loot, never in industrial buildings)
  
• Walking in the bright sun without a headwear can get you sunstroke.
  
• Wearing very warm clothes can make you even more fatigue and have a sunstroke.
  
• Running causes more fatigue.
  
• Autmatic weapons get overheated more and jam more frequently.
  
• Foraging is not very effective, plants are dried.
  
• Transport gets overheated and can have engine damage if driven at more than 40-60kmh speed.
  
• Players stay mainly in shadow, in the forests, water sources become vital for survival.
  

UPDATED:

"Cold" season

• ...
  
• +Vehicles are consuming more fuel and take much more time to start the engine.
  
• +Air transport is having icing problems and is not recommended to fly.
  

[speca 193]

Love the idea, i would just make it a few days instead of weeks to get the seasons around quicker.

(Didn't read trough it correctly, edited post.)

Edited October 29, 2012 by Auzzii

[DZR_Mikhail 2424]

Yeah, time and periods I've chosen just randomly. They can and must be tweaked to balance everything out. The most important is the dynamics of the survival and unpredicted difficulties.

P.s. Another name for "Fire" season, is "Ibiza" season, beecause I can guarantee everyone will be running around in just their single pants on to save water and not to have heatstroke :)

[Zeppa 562]

This is good, gives more reason to use storages (tents etc) to stock up sublies for upcoming "seasons"

[DZR_Mikhail 2424]

Exactly ;) Somebody will be running carelessly (mainly newbs who never experienced seasons).

By the way, for each season there can be a very subtle but noticable visual clue made. For cold season it is obvious. For heat season we can have a slight yellowish tint in the atmosphere, that dusty hot vague impression...

For Epizootic season we can have dead animals in the wood and a bit more gloomy forest surroundings.

For hunger it may be a feeling of emptyness, may be a bit greyish colour and wind with dust.

Not very obvious ones, but known to experienced people

And this visual, atmospheric change is happening the day before the season start. So those who knows what's coming after this SIGN can get ready a bit and survive better.

[DZR_Mikhail 2424]

Updated the original post with visual\sound clues for each season.

[fuenke 10]

I love the idea! But I would make the "announcement time" longer than at least 3 days, so that a player which can't play every day doesn't stumble into a season without preparation.

And you must take care of the problem of player changing to a server with no adverse season. So I suggest to make those seasons at the same time on every servers OR (my prefered alternative) to make no breaks between the seasons (ecxept for a 5-7 days "announcement time"). Both would be the best!

The time for a single season should then be about 14 days.

[indominator 95]

PA, already suggested. lol JK. You sir are awesome and your threads are awesomely super win!

Also, stormy season, so lots or rains and rivers can get bigger, not only occasional floods and lakes get bigger or formed in the countryside, with added humidity weapons decay a little easier, rust and stuff. It could be called monsoons.

fall season, leaves "fall"lol. Trees become weaker but are more easy to take down and gather wood but this wood is not as strong as normal. Also if seasons can sometimes start together this with rainy could mean that terrain in mountains could start slide, you know when ... erosion thingy. So prolly making caves in weak terrain would not be a good thing or not only it could fall over the player or the terrain could close the entrance.

evac season, big sunk boats apper on the cost, they keep degrading and their metal can be scrapped, not only other crashed stuff respawn but they are all without military loot, beacuse they would be focused in base construction. Also in this season, some raw materials could randomly spawn more.

what about a season with air drops, not the cheat that is the hacked stuff. But the ones like in jericho, which is food with conservants, seeds for crops, clothes, generators and other helping stuff.

With this bases do not become just become an end game, where it would become two different gameplays for different people, but a gameplay that intertwines between themselves and makes both important not just random looting in places and them going to snipe players, that could be continued but your survival ratio would go down a lot.

Also, how many days will a season last, and is it going to be forced on all hive servers. Like in a certain difficulty all servers worldwide go to dry season so you cant just hop servers and escape them? I hope you cant escape like you proposed with night. Please, fix night.

Also, in cold season night is longer than normal. And in hot day is longer.

this is so hard....

waht about cargo days, what i mean by that is that in one day a huge cargo ship or tanker can crash into the mainland. You know those huge ships with lots of cargo or maybe lot with mineral resources and oil, if oil spilled fish could be toxic for a while.

Its some ideas to seasons and some random events, you will judge which one fits dayz better.. lol. love your ideas, finally someone takes these ideas and makes an easy to understand thread.

[person915 345]

What if we just add realistic seasons? This would take care of just about every thing you have up there.

Seasons to me should be lasting the whole entire time the season actually lasts. We already have realistic times for day and night cycles.

Winter- In the winter, it's cold, and infection could set in pretty easily, and animals are in hibernation or migration. Season Epidemy, Epizooic, and Cold are then included in part. Also, get rid of the crap that makes no sense. Vehicles don't consume more fuel in the winter unless you want to keep it warm. Other than that it doesn't do much to consume more fuel. With the decrease in animals I guess you could say it could be called the hunger season too. Still, these changes with the seasons should only make sense.

Spring- In spring, it'd be raining a LOT of the time, and zombies would probably be howlin' 'cuz they're hormonal since it's spring and everything is mating. Maybe this would be the season to add more chance of getting infected as the disease would be looking to spread. Seasons Zombie infestation come into effect. You also only talk about bad effects and the changes in player behavior from those effects. A good effect of spring should be more animals out and more water.

Summer- there's your fire season. Still rains in summer, though.

Fall- leaves fall, things start to dwindle, gets a bit colder, and everything just looks a bit more beautiful. Random rain showers from the summer still leak in.

In closing, I'd like seasons, even though they'd require a ton of work considering they'd have to add that many more files for things covered in snow and leaves changing color, but don't go adding things that don't make sense. Already in DayZ, if you have a weapon, it becomes harder to find ammo. This is arguable, but I had a Lee Enfield in Cherno and couldn't find any mags for it except 1 in the church. Same with all my weapons. The point is, things should be as they are. It's either there, or it isn't, don't go bullshitting those of us who actually like to keep our weapons by decreasing ammo spawns of that type for us [(rocket) sorry if this is untrue and the DayZ gods just hate me] and don't go BSing us who just want to play the game by decreasing food and ammo spawns for no reason. It's either there or it isn't. The weather outside does not affect how many cans I have in my pantry.

Edited October 29, 2012 by Neko-san

[sheriffhd 61]

This is the best idea you have posted so far :D

[Timberwolf (DayZ) 118]

Dude, why are you not on the dev team already?

[mzltv 2281]

It's a very good idea. As long as it isn't overly-stingy to the point where there's literally f*ck all food and water, then it'd be good. I like the ammunition one. Good way to cull the PvP aspect too. Beans ahoy! :beans: :thumbsup:

Edited October 29, 2012 by mzltv

[colekern 1364]

Harvest season. Food spawns are doubled.

[Zdudeski 10]

I'd like to keep it "simple" with the 4 seasons . And I don't think loot should be effected by seasons . Animals yes but loot no.

Different animals in each season would be neat as well as in RL .

Spring :

- Abundant wildlife

- Mild weather

Summer:

- Increased temperature ( causing increased thirst and fatigue)

- Meat spoils much faster ( unless stored properly)

- Summer clothes mandatory.

Fall:

- Temp drops

- More layers required for warmth

- Animals are not so easy to find

- Obviously the leaves should change colors and trees should begin to shed them.

Winter :

- Freezing temps

- Coats and multiple layers required for warmth

- Wildlife scarce

- Occasional blizzards that reduce visibility movement and warmth.

Seasons would add incredible depth to the game. Play styles would change. ------You would need to keep warm in the winter with fires and warm coats ( let's hope you have found a warm coat by now ) . You will spend a considerable amount of time hunting game that is so scarce you worry about starvation. Fruits and veggies will have frozen. ------ Summer rolls around a month later and you now have to strip off your heavy layers and search desperately for water.

Summer and Winter would have the greatest effect. While Spring and Fall can be a nice change of scenery and some tweaks to the environment such as temp and wildlife frequency. my 2 cents ...

[Wallace (DayZ) 19]

The idea of the four seasons, spring summer fall and winter, and implementing the ideas the OP had in the standalone, would be amazing.

Aesthetic and physical changes based on time of year that effect you would do wonders for this game.

I just hope they could make it to where every server shares the same times season wise. They should still differ as far as night and day, for people who have different schedules, but if it's Winter in DayZ, it should be that way for everyone.

And I think the four seasons should last about 3 months each like they do here in real life, or however long they would last in chernarus.

It's a simulator right?

Edited October 30, 2012 by Wallace

[koze 113]

Since it's based in Russia I think the climate should be permanently in winter.

But something that would suit this better would to make the seasons change weekly instead of monthly.

[Jeremiah Cross 55]

I like the idea of just the four standard seasons, though maybe sped up a bit. I can't see spending my play time over three whole months just trying to keep warm and fed.

Another idea to add hunger to winter would be to replace canned goods with Frozen canned good during that season, given the lack of any heating systems. You would need to heat them over a fire to eat them, changing them to Warm canned foods. This could even act like a heat pack for a little bit before degrading back to normal and then frozen food.

Some animals could be seasonal, but most game animals don't hibernate, though having them be more scarce in winter makes sense. Perhaps in winter they could drop less meat as well, seeing as wild animals tend to lose a lot of weight during the winter. Fall is the best time for hunting, not only because most species are in the rut, and hence pretty stupid, but also because the animals are all fattened up for winter.

The way I see it playing out would be much like the seasonal cycle has been for most of human history. Spring would be a nice respite from the winter when you would try to start restocking supplies and getting back to optimal health. Summer would most likely be the time of war, due to both players being recovered from winter and COD kiddies being off school. Fall would be the time for harvesting and stock piling supplies for the winter. Winter would be a period of pure survival, where the acquisition of food and shelter becomes priority, again probably a time of pretty intense violence as well due to competition for food and other supplies.

[Jakub-SK 15]

I like this one . Very original and can be actualy put in the game .

[jman 8]

I like. Different times of the in game "year" should have different effects.