1.7.1 Does the Wrong Thing.

[Ottsky 0]

It's very simple. DayZ has always been about surviving, and it's a good thing for that. And I'm all for making the game legitimately more difficult, I mean, I loved it when I heard the idea of a temperature system and I like the idea of having packs being difficult at best to find, and having zombies that are more numerous and stronger and can hit further is great for how the game wants to create an atmosphere of "This is terrifying, I do not want to be out here".

What's not great is what 1.7.1 does. It doesn't fix banditry in any way, it doesn't make the game harder, it doesn't make the late game more fulfilling, it doesn't make the cost of death more meaningful, it doesn't make finding things more rewarding. It adds tedium. You can ask any person on the forum right now that has been playing and has died and had to try out the new stuff, the game isn't harder or more difficult in any way right now. If you're lucky you can easily pop up into the forests after collecting a rifle and a piece of food and a can of coke, and then boom you're in the mid game and working towards late game, both of which are almost entirely unaffected in difficulty, risk, or reward by the new patch.

I like the idea of having a more difficult game all around, but difficulty shouldn't be artificial. The game's "new difficulty" in 1.7.1 is really, really artificial, coming only from the question of how many times you're willing to either wait a long time for little reward, or how many times you're willing to be shot for absolutely no reason because you banked on partnering up with someone instead of waiting.

Sneaking and stealth isn't hard, even in the new patch, I personally play the game solo and have since I started with the exception of one week or so with friends, so it's not a situation of being difficult in the slightest to hide or move around zombies, the new patch just means that I have to sit around for twice as long now for no bonus or gain. The risk isn't really there in anything risking dying from boredom, and the reward hasn't changed from 'maybe you'll get anything other than empty cans' as a benefit for survival. The game needs to be focused on fixing the issues that are in it, and then after that focused on creating legitimate difficulty for the entire experience, not just artificially lengthening the first third of the game by making you literally have to wait longer.

[Powell (DayZ) 734]

Hey look, another guy who had to make his own thread while he could have just posted in an existing 1.7.1 thread

TL;DR