A Noob Perspective

[BobitoZ 0]

As this is an Alpha I feel like I should provide some feedback. I'm sure many of these issues have been brought up before but hopefully a new perspective can highlight those issues.

User Interface: It's clunky.

Really, nothing else can be said. I've gotten use to it at this point, but it clearly needs to be streamlined.

Sound effects: Needs more consistency.

The zombies need to provide better feedback when they spot you, when they hit you, when you hit them, and when they die. Take HL2, the combine always make that the same sound when they die. It provides instant feedback for the players actions and does not break immersion.

The same should be done for other players. If there is another player in proximity and has their weapon drawn, there needs to be some kind of indicator. Something as simple as your player breathing heavy would be enough to alert danger. Again consistency, otherwise the sounds are just a jumbled mess.

Physics: Needs work.

The fact that a bicycle becomes useless on even a slight incline is unacceptable.

Reward/Cost: Most important aspect in any game.

This needs some serious looking into. If a player decides to kill another player there needs to be a really high cost involved for doing so. All a bandit needs to do is camp high traffic areas and let the supplies come to them. This has no cost for them. A towel on your head is not a cost. If a player consistently kills other players they should have to pay for that. Their health should be less, they should get hungry/ thirsty faster. Every aspect needs to be harder for them, because right now there is no cost.

They are basically acting like zombies/infected, so treat them as such.

The reward for helping other players needs to be higher. Right now the incentives to do so is too low.

Hacking:

I get that this is put more on the servers right now, but I do hope you realize at this point in time hacking is the norm. When the standalone version is released there needs to be some strong anti-hacks in place. Dying to a hacker appearing behind you in the middle of nowhere is unacceptable in mainstream gaming. Especially when the cost is so high. It will have a huge backlash.

Overall Impressions:

The concept is great. The mood is spot on. The tension is palpable.

Please take the time to listen to your Alpha Testers so this can succeed in the best possible way.

[TtS1991 211]

1 Really, nothing else can be said. I've gotten use to it at this point, but it clearly needs to be streamlined.

2 Sound effects: Needs more consistency.

The zombies need to provide better feedback when they spot you, when they hit you, when you hit them, and when they die. Take HL2, the combine always make that the same sound when they die. It provides instant feedback for the players actions and does not break immersion.

The same should be done for other players. If there is another player in proximity and has their weapon drawn, there needs to be some kind of indicator. Something as simple as your player breathing heavy would be enough to alert danger. Again consistency, otherwise the sounds are just a jumbled mess.

3 Physics: Needs work.

The fact that a bicycle becomes useless on even a slight incline is unacceptable.

4 This needs some serious looking into. If a player decides to kill another player there needs to be a really high cost involved for doing so. All a bandit needs to do is camp high traffic areas and let the supplies come to them. This has no cost for them. A towel on your head is not a cost. If a player consistently kills other players they should have to pay for that. Their health should be less, they should get hungry/ thirsty faster. Every aspect needs to be harder for them, because right now there is no cost.

5 The reward for helping other players needs to be higher. Right now the incentives to do so is too low.

6 Dying to a hacker appearing behind you in the middle of nowhere is unacceptable in mainstream gaming. Especially when the cost is so high. It will have a huge backlash.

7 Please take the time to listen to your Alpha Testers so this can succeed in the best possible way.

1. The mod is based off of a MilSim, which means the interface has to have the information and be accessible to be able to work. The interfaces in similarly difficult games such as "S.T.A.L.K.E.R" are very similar and have the same level of complexity, if you want to call it that.

2. The sound is used in the base game of Arma2, such as heavily breathing indicating you're running out of energy and are slowing down. Zombies make sounds when they aggro on you, like screeching and weird gurgle-y excited muttering things. Because it's a mod, the zombies use the AI used by enemy soldiers in the base game.

3. And falling from two feet can break your leg and cause you to bleed to death? Or maybe the part where ATV's get stuck in the ground because they're clipping. >Mod

4. I don't know whether other people trust Banditos, but that shemagh on their head makes them a pretty clear threat. Skin = Guilty until proven innocent. If someone says there's a sniper overlooking Cherno, head to Berezino. Or Stary. Or any other of the multitude of cities in Chernarus.

5. Depends on the POV. Many people help other people because they have nothing else to do that they haven't done before, or because they're RPing as a Lawful Good/ Neutral Good/ whateverthefuck. Some people won't help anyone. Some people won't think twice about shooting that guy looting the tents in Stary Sobor. Player Characters, if you will.

6. Every "mainstream game" has it's hackers. All the Modern Warfares and Black Ops's, Minecraft, and the beloved Battlefield 3 (or Free if you come from one of those places with the hilarious accents) all have scripters/hackers. DayZ server admins and BattleEye do their best to keep the game fun and script-free but have a tough time detecting them before they rape everybody with teleportation/huge nukes.

7. It's in development now, and there's a whole section of the forum dedicated to suggestions/complaints/friendly reminders/ideas/rape, which means that the dev team is listening/reading up on these.

Whatever comes out of Bohemia/DayZDev that's the standalone, it'll be a lot smoother and dedicated to the game and will have the fixes necessary to make the game fun and balanced. .

[BobitoZ 0]

I fully understand that it's a mod. I just want to highlight my initial impressions after playing for about 14 days. I only want success for Day Z at this point. Constructive criticism is useful for any content creator.

If I could have them work on anything it would be the sound, physics/animations and UI. That's what usually separates a A game from a AAA game.

Moral choices of players are something to be left up for debate latter. We can't get to that point though if the game mechanics get in the way.

[The Stoned Wolf 491]

As this is an Alpha I feel like I should provide some feedback. I'm sure many of these issues have been brought up before but hopefully a new perspective can highlight those issues.

User Interface: It's clunky.

Really, nothing else can be said. I've gotten use to it at this point, but it clearly needs to be streamlined.

Sound effects: Needs more consistency.

The zombies need to provide better feedback when they spot you, when they hit you, when you hit them, and when they die. Take HL2, the combine always make that the same sound when they die. It provides instant feedback for the players actions and does not break immersion.

The same should be done for other players. If there is another player in proximity and has their weapon drawn, there needs to be some kind of indicator. Something as simple as your player breathing heavy would be enough to alert danger. Again consistency, otherwise the sounds are just a jumbled mess.

Physics: Needs work.

The fact that a bicycle becomes useless on even a slight incline is unacceptable.

Reward/Cost: Most important aspect in any game.

This needs some serious looking into. If a player decides to kill another player there needs to be a really high cost involved for doing so. All a bandit needs to do is camp high traffic areas and let the supplies come to them. This has no cost for them. A towel on your head is not a cost. If a player consistently kills other players they should have to pay for that. Their health should be less, they should get hungry/ thirsty faster. Every aspect needs to be harder for them, because right now there is no cost.

They are basically acting like zombies/infected, so treat them as such.

The reward for helping other players needs to be higher. Right now the incentives to do so is too low.

Hacking:

I get that this is put more on the servers right now, but I do hope you realize at this point in time hacking is the norm. When the standalone version is released there needs to be some strong anti-hacks in place. Dying to a hacker appearing behind you in the middle of nowhere is unacceptable in mainstream gaming. Especially when the cost is so high. It will have a huge backlash.

Overall Impressions:

The concept is great. The mood is spot on. The tension is palpable.

Please take the time to listen to your Alpha Testers so this can succeed in the best possible way.

One thing I want to say: Rocket has stated that their will be no real punishment for being a bandit other than the skin. Why? Because he doesn't want to punish people for choosing a play style they like. While I agree that banditry is a bit extreme right now, I also agree it shouldn't be too punishable simply so it isn't as, what's the word? Restrictive. And there is some incentive to raise your humanity as you can get a hero skin (makes you run faster, you're immune to low caliber bullets, etc.), it's just such a big hassle because nobody trusts anybody else to help them. Other than that the physics/UI/AI and everything else are being heavily improved upon in the standalone, so look forward to that! ;)

Edited January 3, 2013 by Excision

[themurdertrain 33]

The bandit skin is punishment enough. If you have the bandit skin, the towel over your face won't stop a bullet. I KoS people with that skin whenever it is safe for me to do so, simply because they've obviously earned it. Yes, you might have it from self-defense related bugs, but fact of the matter is if you wait to ask them you're all ready dead.

Edited January 3, 2013 by themurdertrain

[pmjkerr 76]

I've been playing this mod for over 9 months and I couldnt give a rats ass about any of these things you've mentioned. I would continue to play even if the mod was still on 1.4 and a million times worse than it is today.

Everything that has you worried is visible to the thousands of other users and will be dealt with in the best possible way by the dev team. Hence to production of a stand alone release.

[colekern 1364]

Most of these will be fixed in the standalone. As for the hacking, it caused by Arma's engine. DayZ standalone will be using a custom engine.

Also, nothing will be in place to prevent KOS. The idea is that by adding more content, players will want to work together to achieve their goals.

[BobitoZ 0]

Thanks for the replies. Just giving some feedback, like I should. That was kind of the point, "noob perspective."

I've already bought 2 copies of ARMA II: CO and look forward to getting the standalone.

[Very Ape 748]

I dearly hope there are no skins.

[plrsniper 87]

My responses in green...

As this is an Alpha I feel like I should provide some feedback. I'm sure many of these issues have been brought up before but hopefully a new perspective can highlight those issues.

User Interface: It's clunky.

Really, nothing else can be said. I've gotten use to it at this point, but it clearly needs to be streamlined.

Getting an overhaul in SA (standalone)

Sound effects: Needs more consistency.

Care to define what needs to be done? I know the sound effects are out of whack at times but it doesn't break the game for me.

The zombies need to provide better feedback when they spot you, when they hit you, when you hit them, and when they die. Take HL2, the combine always make that the same sound when they die. It provides instant feedback for the players actions and does not break immersion.

Zombies scream when they have spotted someone. When they die they fall to the ground, you can't miss that since you have to look at them to kill them.

I really don't want a monotone death sound. And they do make a sound when they die, you can hear the thud as they hit the dirt.

The same should be done for other players. If there is another player in proximity and has their weapon drawn, there needs to be some kind of indicator. Something as simple as your player breathing heavy would be enough to alert danger. Again consistency, otherwise the sounds are just a jumbled mess.

No, i don't want that. YOU are the character, you need to keep your eyes open. Any heavy breathing should be coming from your mouth as you see another player. It should not just happen because someone has their sights on you.

Physics: Needs work.

May be improved in SA, it may use the revised ragdoll and vehicle physics of ArmA 3.

The fact that a bicycle becomes useless on even a slight incline is unacceptable.

Unacceptable? THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE! I DEMAND MY MONEY BACK!!!111

Surely you must be joking right? Try to pedal up a steep incline in real life. Would you go back to the bike shop and ask for your money back because you can't pedal up a 45 degree incline?

Also, the bicycle is extremely effective at getting up most slopes. The player must be some kind of superman i say.

Reward/Cost: Most important aspect in any game.

What is the cost? Walking around for some time to get to the safe loot spots?

It's risk vs reward. You take a risk and you get a reward. You go to the NW airfield and RISK getting caught on your way there or at the airfield to get some of that sweet military loot.

You go into cherno to loot the firestation and the store but you risk running into a lot of different players with who knows what gear. Though since you are so close to the spawn points there's not much risk involved since you barely have any gear anyways.

There already is a increased reward for taking risks. If you aren't getting any rewards that's because you are not taking the proper risks.

This needs some serious looking into. If a player decides to kill another player there needs to be a really high cost involved for doing so.

Says who? This is an apocalypse scenario, the only cost in killing someone is the fact that others may notice you and try to kill you back.

It's actually pretty backwards because you are punished with a bandit skin making it clearly evident you have killed a player.

All a bandit needs to do is camp high traffic areas and let the supplies come to them.

I am sure that's not all he needs to do... He takes a risk being a bandit as others will come looking for him. And camping high traffic areas (which pretty much is inside Cherno and Elektro and the direct paths from the spawns leading to the said cities) does not give a bandit any lasting loot. Painkillers and bandages from fresh spawns is not what a bandit wants...

They do it because they like it, plain and simple. And occasionally they find other bandits or geared good guys to kill. The reason they all gather at the same locations is the high frequency of other easy targets that haven't learned how to play properly.

This has no cost for them.

Ammunition does not grow on trees. And it's still risky to shoot someone as he may have friends nearby ready to retaliate at any time.

A towel on your head is not a cost.

It sure is, players are more likely to shoot on sight if they see the bandit skin. No questions asked.

If a player consistently kills other players they should have to pay for that. Their health should be less, they should get hungry/ thirsty faster. Every aspect needs to be harder for them, because right now there is no cost.

They are basically acting like zombies/infected, so treat them as such.

The reward for helping other players needs to be higher. Right now the incentives to do so is too low.

The game is not designed to be a friendly place. It is designed around the constant threat of being shot at by anyone at any time. If you start to punish players for killing others then this turns into another run of the mill game and the majority of the player base will jump ship. Even if you are a good guy through and through you want the danger that bandits pose. It's one of the only thrills presented in this mod.

Go play hello kitty online if you want to hug and cuddle with others all day or play farming simulator if you want to just farm items all day.

And there is a pretty significant reward for being a hero already, you run much faster and you have the hero skin and thus are much less likely to be killed on sight by neutral or other hero players.

As a hero, if you kill one player you lose your hero status for a LONG time and with it the benefit of running faster than anyone else.

Hacking:

I get that this is put more on the servers right now, but I do hope you realize at this point in time hacking is the norm. When the standalone version is released there needs to be some strong anti-hacks in place. Dying to a hacker appearing behind you in the middle of nowhere is unacceptable in mainstream gaming. Especially when the cost is so high. It will have a huge backlash.

No matter how much effort Rocket puts into anti hacking measures there will still be cheaters from time to time. He can only do so much to limit what hackers can do. There is no absolute solution to the hacker problem.

Other games have plenty of cheaters, WoW is not exempt from this. Neither is EvE Online. Both games require several days, weeks or even months to get anywhere.

The difference with those games is you don't lose everything on one death. And you aren't exposed to PvP in the same fashion.

Also they are more server side, the client can only ask the server to perform an action whereas in DayZ you have to be able to control your character in real time. The server will not be capable of taking your input and turning it into anything meaningful. The server is also relieved of a lot of tasks that instead are performed client side. Without that structure the server would be lagging out immediately and we would not have DayZ. Instead we would have something like Left 4 Dead and you would most likely not even play the game.

EDIT: Oh and by the way, hacking is not the norm at all. Most players play legit. But you only notice the hackers.

It may be the norm in the number of deaths from other players that you suffer (but considering how you seem like a total noob i doubt it) but cheaters are still an exception to the norm.

Every server gets cheaters from time to time but that doesn't make it the norm either. Join a whitelisted server and you eliminate most cheaters as they don't have the energy to bother with getting into a whitelisted server.

Overall Impressions:

The concept is great. The mood is spot on. The tension is palpable.

Please take the time to listen to your Alpha Testers so this can succeed in the best possible way.

Rocket does listen, he just doesn't listen to the ill informed minority. If he did then this would just be another failed attempt at making something unique... Like WarZ is.

Edited January 4, 2013 by X0TCadde

[BobitoZ 0]

"Care to define what needs to be done? I know the sound effects are out of whack at times but it doesn't break the game for me."

The sounds are just not consistent enough. There should be a specific sound that's for the infected spotting you. And a specific sound for when they die. Falling to the ground is not enough feedback. These sounds need to be different enough for them to be distinguished from other sounds the infected make. It's Psychology, look at any behavioral feedback model.

Rocket does listen, he just doesn't listen to the ill informed minority. If he did then this would just be another failed attempt at making something unique... Like WarZ is.

Thanks for making it personal... I'm sure he can make up his own mind of what is and is not ill informed. Like I said before I'm giving constructive criticism to help the project. No project needs a bunch of yes men. That's what War Z was full of.

Edited January 4, 2013 by BobitoZ

[The2ndLink 156]

What's wrong with you people? The OP is obviously new to the game and is stating his opinion and critisism on the Mod. Giving feedback as he sees himself as an alpha tester. A point most people miss.

Yet a lot of your responses are defensive and negative. The OP is right:

No project needs a bunch of yes men. That's what War Z was full of.

@OP The mod is quite old by now -> most of your points have been adressed numerous times. The offical devellopment of the Mod has been halted and the Standalsone version is beeing worked on. I guess a lot of your points are beeing worked on as we speak.

Rocket is listening to the community. And there are a lot of suggestions. Look here

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/38742-suggestions-for-the-dayz-standalone-thinking-outside-of-the-limitations-of-an-arma-2-mod/

[TtS1991 211]

Sorry to both the OP and everyone else if I sounded a little hostile in my post, I meant to just fill him in on the details of what's been discussed/reworked/brought up a lot.

[Rastamaus 323]

i love noobs =)

[ACow 102]

Some of the suggestions are good/common sense, and are being tackled. Like the hacking/inventory management being clunky, etc.

The other part that I want to respond to is the general theme of "turn it into a typical computer game". So by this I mean things like "impliment higher costs for killing", repeatable audio cues for being spotted, zombie death, player in vacinity with weapon drawn.

To this I must vote a healthy NO. Obviously there's problems with zombie animations, AI, behaviour. But I remember one review which correctly stated that to play DayZ, you have to "unlearn" many of the behaviours that have been conditioned into you by other computer games, and these strike me as one of those things.

Yes, other games have taught you that you need basic signals and pavlovian conditioning to recognise that you've got a reward/response (i.e death sounds, cues, kill signifiers/counts). I don't want that in DayZ. Its one of the things that was great about the game.

I want no indicator that there's another player near me except for when I see/hear them. I want no cue that they have a weapon except for when I see them with it/hear them fire it. I want no cue for a dead player/zombie except for when I see/hear them drop, and I walk up and inspect their dead body. If they're breathing heavily, I want to hear it, but I only want it to be because they've just sprinted across a field with a backpack on and are catching their breath.

I want to be confused. I want the fog of war. I want to be scared and uncertain. I want to have to approach a city thinking about whether I can be seen, and whether I can see other players. I want to have to scout. I want to have to hold back. And I want to have to flee in a panic because I don't know how many players/zombies I've killed and I don't know how many are left until I take the time to count the bodies.

Obviously(or perhaps not obviously), I'd like decent audio. But don't link it to these "game events" like other games do. Just make it realistic environmental noise and make the player respond to that.

Edited January 4, 2013 by ACow

[plrsniper 87]

Thanks for making it personal... I'm sure he can make up his own mind of what is and is not ill informed. Like I said before I'm giving constructive criticism to help the project. No project needs a bunch of yes men. That's what War Z was full of.

It's not personal, you can take it personally if you'd like but the fact remains you don't understand Rockets design goals. He has already said he doesn't want to punish bandits. It's not Rockets fault that ArmA is very hack friendly. Many of your suggestions you made are coming or being considered, read the proper threads.

Most of your suggestion have already been suggested. Frequently...

That makes you (among so many others) ill informed. That doesn't mean you can't become informed and once again, it's nothing personal.

If i tell you that you are wrong that is not personal, it's a statement about your level of knowlede on these matters. Your choice of words make you come across as whiny and you assume players do things to grief you where in fact they are trying to enjoy the game the way it's designed.

Edited January 5, 2013 by X0TCadde

[GeneticFreak 23]

As for the user interface and physics, you best be talking to Bohemia Interactive as they make Arma II what it is, not Rocket :D

[dystopeon 46]

in regards to cost of banditry. I'm pretty sure the SA will be 1st person only, thus most of the noob snipers will not be able to hide/snipe effectively, as they are too used to 360 degree 3DP exploiting and can't actually play the game properly anyway.

[DemonGroover 8836]

Most of the things you mention are the direct result of this being a mod of Arma II and will hopefully be fixed/addressed/completely revamped for the SA.

Other things you mention, like knowing when somebody draws a gun or punishing banditry i cant agree with. I really dont want any interference from the game in how i should play or act. I dont want prompts. Peripheral dots, bandit skins? No - get rid of them.

You say there isnt any cost for being a bandit? Why should there be a cost? Sure you get campers but you will soon learn their favourite spots and there is nothing better than creeping up behind a proned bandit sniper. Better still if you hatchet him in the head. Remember bandits are just as fearful of other players as you are......or they should be!

Welcome anyways and enjoy!

[BobitoZ 0]

Maybe having the character breathing heavy is too arcady to indicate danger.

Something simple like distinct sounds for footprints may be all that is needed. Injected have a distinct sound, you have a distinct sound, and other players have a distinct sound. I think this falls in the same rational as having 3rd person. Self awareness needs to be translated to the player in some way.