is dayz 100% PvP on the long term?

[_Anubis_ (DayZ) 139]

I am slowly reaching that conclusion after weeks of playing. So what makes it really different from CoD at the end? A bigger-than-usual deathmatch arena?

The 'survival' stage lasts 2-3 hours (if you know what to do), the time to get a couple of water bottles, hatchet, knife and matches. Then you can survive forever, going occasionally to the nearest barn to integrate your diet with canned food and beverages. You do not really need a weapon beside the hatchet, since all the animals can be easily hunted (except for the rabbit).

Other than that, it is pure, total PvP. I consider myself kind of average/lousy but I have not died due to Zombies (other than they glitching through walls) since ages. I only die due to other players KOS mentality, even freshly spawned... What's the point of killing an harmless player? Must be some kind of sick fun.

I really like the sandbox concept, but after a steep learning curve you reach quickly a plateau where you could stay forever: no Zombie can catch you while raiding a town.You may be wounded in a building fight with them but it requires a few meat to recover if you bandage yourself quickly.

The loot respawning mechanism guarantees that after enough attemps you will find what you need. You will have all you can have, even a military weapon and ammo if you have the perseverance to visit enough Deer Stands, no need to go to fabled NWAF or Stary Sobor. Even if for the occasional PvP (if you play lone wolf) a crappy L-E is enough: 99.9% who sees first kills first. End of story.

It is almost like the entire concept is driving you toward the endgame: kill or be killed by (because it will statistically happen sooner or later) another player. Nothing more.

So paradoxically, you get "more" from dayz the "less" you know. Map, compass and gps make navigation a breeze and to be honest, you do not even need those tools after a while. As I said I am lousy but the landscape of dayz is excellent and after a while you can navigate by using visual landmarks only. The unknown environment challenges you, but only at the beginning.

What I am trying to say is that I am surprised in seeing the zombie-apocalypse-fight for survival side fading so quickly after having understood the basic survival rules: it means that part is only a facade, a scenario where the 'real' fight (the PvP part) takes place.

I wonder whether this could be counter balanced somehow, or I am simply wrong in assuming dayz is solidly different from a typical multiplayer/deathmatch stuff: the only thing that comes to my mind is the "medic" idea.

_Anubis_

[porkus_maximus 36]

Basically yes. DayZ is a sandbox but its an empty one, all there really is to do is loot chopper crashes and hunt players.

[King Tubbs 224]

what you have to remember is this is alpha REALLY early alpha at that

in the SA everything you mentioned will change and continue to change every week

at the moment you are playing the bare bones so there is not a lot to do

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

You're basing your conclusions on the mod, this was only ever intended to provide a few hours fun for some friends yet here we are, not far from a fully fledged game being released.

The problem with the mod is that there really isn't much content so once you've nailed how to survive, many people just start treating it as COD style game. The SA is dealing with this by adding many layers of complexity, meaning surviving in itself will be the main focus of your time and effort. Of course the PVP element will always be there as it should be, that's where the tension comes from.

[TacticalN29 89]

If you kept up with the standalone news at all Rocket has talked about underground base building and adding more maps EVE style. He never said he was going to do the EVE style thing but he said he was interested in doing it I believe.

Edited February 17, 2013 by TacticalN29

[Spentmind 23]

I wonder how many more threads I'll see like this before the SA comes out.

[mr_chabowski@live.co.uk 2416]

The lack of features is due to the fact that this is only a mod demonstrating the idea of DayZ.

It's still a sandbox, where players can do anything they can imagine.

Therein lies the problem.

It's a brainpower bottleneck more than anything else.

EDIT:

Before I get complaints, think about it.

Why is it as soon as we have the freedom to use our creativity, people start complaining about being bored?

Edited February 17, 2013 by Chabowski

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

Learn a new skill. Russian, hunting, how to cook a slap-up steak dinner or even how to dance.

Chernarus is what you make of it, boy. This is your story and all that.

[dallas 5195]

Played it for some 47 weeks, murdered max 5, killed 20-30 in what I'd consider justified self defense. Rest of the time, I've survived alone, with squad members and a lot of strangers. I guess it's what you make of it, as Ingasmeeg just said.

I mean, what's your motivation for anything, just do what you must do.

But just like killing is a skill you can advance in DayZ, so can you become better at meeting up with strangers, without getting KOS'd every time. As of now, people I've exchanged words with in voice, has yet to backstab me.

Edited February 17, 2013 by Dallas

[Lupatchi 143]

according to razors new update, its going to get alot harder.

hatchets failing, matches failing, durability etc.

[Scawtygs 20]

I liken it to Minecraft. When i caught sight of minecraft, my mind buzzed and brought me back to my childhood with legos, and i saw in the potential of pure creativity and pure freedom. I loved mincecraft the most when it didn't give you a single hint at what you're supposed to do (much like DayZ does the first few tries through)

So it never surprises me when people whined about minecraft being boring, or lame, or having no point.....That's because it has no point to be made. The trick is you make it what you want it to be. It's sad how many people lack imagination, or even the concept of it.

It's very nearly the same thing with DayZ, except there are some more tangible goals, and immediate needs, and the fact it's a glitchyalphazombiemod makes it more important to be imaginative, and enjoy it.

I still can't understand why people think DayZ is becoming like CoD.....last time i played CoD, i didn't spawn with nothing on the coast of a massive map, with endless directions to explore, have to scavange my own food, water, tools, maps, clothes, camouflage, weapons, ammo, and even vehicles, parts, gas......What i'm saying is. I never flinch when i die in CoD. but every time i die in DayZ from another player (whether it's from a huge firefight, or just sniped from across te town) my heart races to the point of failure (this coming from a guy with major heart problems (probably should take it easy)) and i become flush with almost the sense of death and it strengthens my need to live longer, survive better, and kill faster (or protect the helpless more if i have the means) the next time i spawn.

SO.....quick answer, DayZ will never be like a CoD deathmatch unless a hacker places everyone in a gated off area of cherno, arms them with the most recent military equipment, fix their blood/hunger/thirst/temp. meters to 100% permanantly, resets the respawn to put them straight back in that area, and not to lose their gear........THEN, then DayZ will have some similarities to a CoD deathmatch.....if this is not happening to you, then STFU about your own PVP problems.

AND the endgame of DayZ IS: to survive, and do all that you can to survive until you die (whether PvE or PvP). If you keep dying, then maybe you are putting yourself in the way of other players' bullets far too often. If you can't shoot them first, then stay away from them, Be stealthy, or just stay away from the busy areas.

Like in life, Your death is mostly likely through your own folly.

[irl-calibre 744]

all you can say is that it's 100% certain trouble will find you sonner rather than later, in these situations sometimes the choice is yours if it ends in death or not, sometimes it ain't, but for sure that pioneer spirit is out there if you can find it. Or you can just stay locked in the spawn/die bean warz that rage out there too, the choice is yours..

[HMS 115]

Nah. You can still play just surviving. I refuse to murder other people who are just trying to survive, so when I get bored, I just disappear for a couple of months.

That seems to work.

[bfisher 561]

You need the PvP otherwise it wouldn't be rewarding when you encounter a player who isn't a total douche.

[Dreams_Of_Cheese (DayZ) 71]

-snip-

That was beautiful.

[_Anubis_ (DayZ) 139]

Nah. You can still play just surviving. I refuse to murder other people who are just trying to survive, so when I get bored, I just disappear for a couple of months.

That seems to work.

That seems to nail it, at least the mod.

Interesting, so the KOS/COD mentality is either coming from boredom (too easy to hunt cows, let's hunt players) or fear (especially players who have just started).

Once you conquer fear (and it does not take much) you haven't a lot of motivation left (personally I would add exploring as a possibility, maybe the far north).

_Anubis_

[xwhitemousex 67]

DayZ summed up.

1. Find water (preferrably water bottle)
   
2. Find food
   
3. Find weapon (axe or crowbar is sufficient)
   
4. Find hunting knife
   
5. Find hatchet (if you didn't find it as part of step 3.)
   
6. Find box of matches
   
7. Find water bottle (unless you did so already in step 1.)
   

Once you have all the above you no longer need to visit a single building in the entire game.

You kill animals in the wild, harvest wood, make a fire and cook the meat. Likewise, you use water bottle at lakes and drink that (granted, after 1.7.5.1. you need a tin can to boil the water, but the tin can is not consumed in the process so you only need one.)

Put simple, once you complete the steps above you "won" the game from a "not going to die from hunger or thirst" point of view.

I had the same sentiments as the OP and I found DayZ to be the most fun when I was new in the game, as he cleverly put it... you get more from the game the less you know about it. Because the less you know the more exciting and dangerous it feels. I haven't died to a zombie in ages either. In fact, the last time I died was when I broke my leg due to a stupid tent bug and rather than having my friend waste 2-3 hours and risk his gear by finding morphine on the opposite side of the map at Cherno, Elektro or Berezino, he shot me in the face, put my gear in the tent and I ran back to loot it.

However, after 1.7.5.1 I find the zeds to be alot more challenging. I fired off one shot with a winchester just yesterday and suddenly it looked just like the scene in 28 Weeks later when he is running from the old house at the start... with zeds rushing at me from every angle across an open field. Madness! And I loved it!

Teaming up is what it is about!

Now, if you want the game to offer more than just finish the list at the start of this reply, then I strongly suggest teaming up with other people. Either join a gaming community and join their voicechat (mumble, TS, vent et.c.) or have some friends join you and set up your own voicechat servers. The game is LOADS more fun when you play as a group, even as a small one.

Here are some examples why.

You run around alone, you find a vehicle... it has a broken tire, damaged hull and low on gas... what do you do? Well... it's going to take you awhile to find all those things and carry them back alone. And most likely the vehicle is in an area full of zeds crawling around as well. So the survivalist choice is to leave it behind and move on.

But with friends, the workload is much less... and the inventory space bigger... so that tire taking up 6 slots, the scrap metal taking 3 slots, the jerry cans (which you may need 2-3 of at least for a car) take 3 slots each... but when you spread that across several people it's much easier. Also, with more friends you can split up and scavenge different locations for items rather than doing it all alone... so fixing motorcycles, cars and trucks is much easier...

And let me tell you... the game changes alot once you got some wheels. Those 5km journeys to the next supermarket is a breeze rather than an annoying run.

Not to mention, as was the case last night for me and my friend. He got smacked through a wall by a zombie, broke his leg and was basically eaten alive. We were quite far from the coast as well which meant at least a 4-6km run from respawn back to his body. Quite daunting if you are alone and have to run all the way, perhaps only able to navigate using DayZDB or other sites since you have no ingame map anymore. But since we were two, and we still had our motorcycle... I simply got on the bike, drove down to the coast, picked up my friend on the mainroad by Komarov, drove back to where he died. I ran out on a field, fired a shot in the air, all the zeds ran after me and he ran in to loot himself.

Very easy and done quite fast as well (compared to doing it all alone).

Now we have found a few tents during our raids and set up a couple of camps... we found a boat, a 4x4 truck, 2 motorcycles (which we are still fixing up) and a V3S truck which we need to get out of a city (it was missing only a tire). And this is with just me and a friend working together as a pair. It's even cooler if you have more people and a larger group.

In conclusion

Put simple...

You can "win" the game by just finding the right tools and then live in the woods as a lone wolf.

Or you can group up with friends and start all sorts of small projects, such as fixing up vehicles, setting up camps, start gather ammo for military guns (which can be quite sparse on white listed servers since there is no, or at least very limited, duping and cheating) and so on.

As a group, DayZ becomes a whole new ballgame!

Edited February 18, 2013 by xwhitemousex

[Devon206 (DayZ) 77]

Well considering that it's a video game and you cannot have your own Phsyical traits such as being strong from the other characters or running faster, you could never change this in a game.

[xwhitemousex 67]

Well considering that it's a video game and you cannot have your own Phsyical traits such as being strong from the other characters or running faster, you could never change this in a game.

Physical traits?

So when you spawn after a death, you have a random physical trait? :D

Sometimes you spawn as a short and skinny guy, and you get colder faster and die from pneumonia.

Next time you spawn as a fat guy and you can't outrun zombies, so you get eaten alive.. also you need 2 cans of pasta to fill the hunger indicator.

Then you spawn as an alcoholic, and you need to find whiskey else you start shivering (like when you are hurt and use painkillers or when you are cold and need to warm up), except to stop this shiver you need whiskey.

Then, you spawn as a morphine addict and you need morphine shots to stop your character from randomly going crazy and running around without you being able to control him trying to find drugs.

Then, you spawn as an old man, and even though you are really wise, you catch disease real fast and get cold if there is a draft near you. Also you can't run, only walk or fall over and break your hipbone. Furthermore you need glasses else you can't see more than 25m, anything beyond is a fog.

Then you spawn as a deaf person and you can't hear... ever.

Then you spawn as a blind person and you can't see... ever.

Then you spawn as a really strong person, but you also have Downs, so zombies sometimes look like survivors and you can't tell them apart.

So much potential in a random physical / psychological trait feature.

[NorthWolfe 3]

I am slowly reaching that conclusion after weeks of playing. So what makes it really different from CoD at the end? A bigger-than-usual deathmatch arena?

The 'survival' stage lasts 2-3 hours (if you know what to do), the time to get a couple of water bottles, hatchet, knife and matches. Then you can survive forever, going occasionally to the nearest barn to integrate your diet with canned food and beverages. You do not really need a weapon beside the hatchet, since all the animals can be easily hunted (except for the rabbit).

Other than that, it is pure, total PvP. I consider myself kind of average/lousy but I have not died due to Zombies (other than they glitching through walls) since ages. I only die due to other players KOS mentality, even freshly spawned... What's the point of killing an harmless player? Must be some kind of sick fun.

I really like the sandbox concept, but after a steep learning curve you reach quickly a plateau where you could stay forever: no Zombie can catch you while raiding a town.You may be wounded in a building fight with them but it requires a few meat to recover if you bandage yourself quickly.

The loot respawning mechanism guarantees that after enough attemps you will find what you need. You will have all you can have, even a military weapon and ammo if you have the perseverance to visit enough Deer Stands, no need to go to fabled NWAF or Stary Sobor. Even if for the occasional PvP (if you play lone wolf) a crappy L-E is enough: 99.9% who sees first kills first. End of story.

It is almost like the entire concept is driving you toward the endgame: kill or be killed by (because it will statistically happen sooner or later) another player. Nothing more.

So paradoxically, you get "more" from dayz the "less" you know. Map, compass and gps make navigation a breeze and to be honest, you do not even need those tools after a while. As I said I am lousy but the landscape of dayz is excellent and after a while you can navigate by using visual landmarks only. The unknown environment challenges you, but only at the beginning.

What I am trying to say is that I am surprised in seeing the zombie-apocalypse-fight for survival side fading so quickly after having understood the basic survival rules: it means that part is only a facade, a scenario where the 'real' fight (the PvP part) takes place.

I wonder whether this could be counter balanced somehow, or I am simply wrong in assuming dayz is solidly different from a typical multiplayer/deathmatch stuff: the only thing that comes to my mind is the "medic" idea.

_Anubis_

The simple answer to your question is Yes, it's inevitable, probably desirable, and the most realistic scenario.

As for your reference to a KoS mentality, it is not totally correct. I, for one, entered the game with no intention of killing (destroying hours of work) anyone. I started to KoS because the first five, yes I was that stupid, "helpless" players I helped, or/and rescued, killed me the first chance they got...after that, I started avoiding other players, and KoS the ones I couldn't. I do revert to helping/saving players, but, like always I am reminded of the price you must pay (being betrayed/killed for your gear). Just yesterday, the 17th, my thirty two dayz old character got killed while saving a "friendly" in Elektra...gave him morphine, blood...then got shot. Not only that, he kept telling the channel, as I re-spawned determined to get back some of my gear, and hunt him down, that I had attempted to kill him!!! The nerve. I proceeded to "suicide/sprint" to the roof of the fire-house, got some of my gear back (knew he couldn't carry it all, and would have to leave at least two weapons), told the channel the truth, warned that I was hunting him down, and would KoS anybody I saw.

So yes, it's inevitable. Coming from a military background, my first thoughts on this game where that it was a huge military/sociological/psychological experiment...I see no reason to negate my first impressions. Lately we have been bombarded with "games" that try to predict/study human behaviour in a SHF/martial-law situation...I see Dayz in that category.

"They" are pepping-up, hope you, and your loved ones, are too (in the real world, that is).

Stay safe!

[dgeesio 1034]

at end of the dayz its always gunna end in someone killing another no matter how many layers are added.

disagree all you want at some point you arnt going to risk losing all your gear hard work to anyone. so you or the other person will always die .

this is why you see it has increased since the game started just like i said it would ;)

started as a oooh lets help each other now noone trusts anyone and its just how it would be once you realize its far easier to shoot someone than spend hrs at a time to find your gear all again by risking teaming up.

so the reason is time . thankyou :)

so no it wont change in standalone. also i enjoy playing as a bandit and i shouldnt feel ashamed to do so ;)

[erbtype 5]

Sounds like you play like I do.

I got tucked up last night by a guy in a group I'd met maybe an hour previously (on Origins) but I'll put that down to language differences and him backed into a corner panicking after a confrontation in a town.

I got killed again 10 minutes later as a fresh spawn from two guys with shotguns in an industrial part of one of the towns. Tried speaking to them but nothing back other than lead. Bit pointless shooting fresh spawns around the towns IMO but I guess it gives them a thrill.

I'd rather meet new people and try and team up, get a car/heli and see where it goes from there.

Anyway, I hope pure PvP isn't where the game goes, I like some PvP but I'd like to see where I can take a game as well.

Played it for some 47 weeks, murdered max 5, killed 20-30 in what I'd consider justified self defense. Rest of the time, I've survived alone, with squad members and a lot of strangers. I guess it's what you make of it, as Ingasmeeg just said.

I mean, what's your motivation for anything, just do what you must do.

But just like killing is a skill you can advance in DayZ, so can you become better at meeting up with strangers, without getting KOS'd every time. As of now, people I've exchanged words with in voice, has yet to backstab me.

[dallas 5195]

Approach groups of people with extreme caution.

One person might be paranoid and a little quick to take defensive action.

Two people are not only paranoid, they are also protective of each other.

The risk of someone deciding to pull the trigger increase exponentially by the number of friends they feel the need to protect.

[NoyZ (DayZ) 66]

Check step 2. Why do people expect different than this? Research FTW.

[xwhitemousex 67]

Considering the heavy kill on sight mentality the game has evolved itself into, I live by a really simple rule.

If they are not IRL friends, nor in the same channel on Teamspeak as myself, then I will shoot if they spot me and leave the area if they haven't.

There is absolutely no benefit whatsoever to approach random strangers and attempt to interact with them.

If you need friends to play with in DayZ, join a gaming community and team up with them or get your IRL friends to join you.

Random people on the internet can never be trusted. People who think otherwise end up with a 9mm in their liver and their cans of beans lost forever.