[DayZ SA] Loot Patterns, Linear looting and more.

[phillipnz 0]

Reposting from my reddit to get a range of feedback from the community :)

So basically I've been following DayZ and more importantly the Standalone for some time now and I haven't seen this issue specifically addressed. From what I understand at the current stage of SA, we have dynamically positioned loot, new loot areas including static car wrecks and more buildings that can be entered.

Something that bothers me greatly in the mod is the ever recurring loot paths and patterns that players embark upon every time they respawn. This becomes so much more evident once you know the game inside out. People shouldn't be respawning constantly to get their favorite area to repeat the same tactics/patterns they have used time and time again, it makes for very linear gameplay. In the mod helicopter crashes are the closest thing that can potentially change the way areas are being scavenged. I believe there is more that can be done and that I hope will get implemented in the future.

Despite this, I realize there a several factors inhibiting how "fresh" the map will feel after the many hours of play people will put in but I hope to bring a few good ideas to the table and create some constructive discussion that will bring to light some fantastic concepts that can keep players invested in the years to come!

Here is a list of ideas myself and some DayZ enthusiasts from NZ Gpforums have contributed to;

-An obvious one, more maps. Preferably official maps, maybe a system where community maps can be submitted, reviewed and released with credit given where credit is due. This is a good route and one that has been proven with all the mods out there.

-Another obvious one. More inbuilt game systems like the old helicopter crashes. Perhaps dynamic quarantine zones that have radiation/gas leaks that require certain items to enter ie; gas masks/gieger counter. Dynamic car pile ups (maybe already in?) where you can pillage through mass car graves and abandoned wrecks for anything of use.

-Weekly events (Using steam to regulate these as small updates? Could the changes be made serverside only?) to change areas on the map differently for an extended period of time. You could create areas of great resource for a week or a few days whether you will. Then you can choose to take this away, put it in another area or do something entirely different. This would work both ways, turning previously plentyful areas into places of destruction and desolation that no longer are very welcome to the player. This is obviously just an addition onto the established idea of having rolling updates, perhaps this could be implemented as endgame.

-Periods of time where known or obvious high loot potential areas just contain rubbish/nothing or very well hidden items. This walks a very thin line between the gameplay being rewarding and just plain bullshit. This involves are large amount of balancing that I think will be preformed in due course.

-Huge packs of zombies that "defend" or "loiter" around certain areas that can easily overwhelm scavengers. These would be easily identifiable hordes and the likelihood of dying would nearly be a certainty compared to what we call an "average" zombie encounter. These wouldn't respawn until restart and the AOE would be dynamic. Personally I don't want to be having the same zombie encounter over and over again, this has been dealt with to some extent I believe and "roaming" zombies are being investigated. Please do not confuse roaming with loitering or defending.

-Spawning broken items, this can be tied into non-linear looting by creating on the spot player decisions, tossing up whether to disregard said broken item or move into a new area to try and find ways to fix said item. Picking up broken items has already been talked about briefly by Dean but perhaps deserves some more love? Clever and countless possible ways to approach fixing something would be very cool and hopefully is already in the works :). A downside with this is that it is a very passive way of creating a new approach to looting.

-Rubbish and skip bins. Highly randomized and often containing just what they are meant to, rubbish. Has potential to contain useful items, perhaps broken or deteriorated after being thrown away (see above). Players have the ability to deposit their own items in these for safe keeping for periods of time, you can imagine the joy of searching a bin to find a survivors temporarily stored goods, one of those fantastic DayZ scavenge moments. Items stored would obviously not carry over restarts.

-Lockboxes/Gun cabinets. Every house/home would have a small chance of spawning with a lockbox, this lockbox would then have a small chance of spawning certain weapons. This idea can be instanced several different ways now that objects can have vehicle properties.

I came to you, DayZ subreddit, for a place to create a good discussion which may hopefully spawn some ideas better than my own, or improvements upon my own ideas. Many of the ideas probably have crossed Deans mind (some I mention are in) already and some may not have. This is just a chance to put our own 2c in and hopefully contribute to make this game the best it possibly can.

Lastly one more thought on making DayZ Public Hives better.

Dynamic Server Quantities

When I scroll through DayZ commander and see all the empty servers I cringe. Everybody knows there is an over-saturation of servers.

This is a basic concept to combat all those nasty situations hundreds of underpopulated servers create. Taken from a idea read on NZ Gpforums.

If 2000 players are online and playing in US. Say we have 30 servers running there on the public hive each with a 80 player limit. This would cater for all the current players online and some. Suddenly it hits 5pm and you get a influx in players coming home from work. Now a central "load" server that controls server quantities starts communicating with software running parallel to 3rd party servers telling them when to start their instance. These would have to be controlled in location determined clusters. Appearing anywhere in the world deemed fit by BIS and the guys working on DayZ.

The benefits this would bring should be obvious to you Hardcore DayZ Fans, full or near to full population servers meaning maximum amount of player interaction, no more kicking it through the empty servers for the lowest possible risk vs high loot potential and no server over-saturation.

This is a concept that could work fantastically with the services Cloud Networking provides and while this would befrom my understanding very expensive to cater for themselves. If the game ever went to Xbox One you could truly take advantage of the Cloud that Microsoft are offering.

Food for thought.. Sorry for the length and probably some grammar and wording, its late and I'm tired. Hopefully its worth a read :)

tl;dr comment some ideas you have to make looting less linear!

http://redd.it/1hfauj

Edited July 2, 2013 by PhillipNZ

[veristaya 71]

Black on dark grey is really hard to read :/

[enforcer1975 1111]

- Maps need years to be "built". It's not liek in CoD where there could toss a map every other week. Even if they used random map programs they still need a lot of fine tuning.

- IMO helicopter crashes should't spawn, they should "happen" during gameplay. Imagine 50 players on the map, they see a helo that looks like it has problems ( smoke etc. ) Imagine the amount of players suddenly trying to follow said helo and wait until it goes down.

- Events can't be done just like that, you would need to edit the mission in order to do so. But before releasing it you have to check for bugs. Every addition can jeopardize a mission if not checked and checked again. You can program it so it's already there but you can't trigger it from the outside and giving admins permission to trigger events is like having the fox guard henhouse.

- Dynamic servers can't work since every party wants their own server to have at least a bit of control. Otherwise it would be good if multiple servers could manage up to 500 players to be on one single map. Would be pretty jammed..if only there where even bigger maps in the 50 x 50km range...

[Walking Wounded 199]

Black on dark grey is really hard to read :/

Click in the grey box then hit cntrl+a this highlights the text for copy and paste making it blue writing on a white background.. Ah the magic of having a clue how to use the PC your sat in front of.

[JoeM (DayZ) 41]

I feel that looting is always going to be fairly linear but as I understand (if I am correct) loot only respawns on server restart? So sure you can check Cherno hospital but you can be sure as hell that there will be nothing there unless you get there quick so the player has to look for more varied sources to get the loot they want.

Am I correct about loot only spawning on restart though?

[veristaya 71]

Click in the grey box then hit cntrl+a this highlights the text for copy and paste making it blue writing on a white background.. Ah the magic of having a clue how to use the PC your sat in front of.

Or, you know, you could just not imply that I'm too stupid to use a PC. I just stated a fact, and it's easier for the OP to change colors once rather than having everyone else do his job. After all, it's HIM that wants feedback, am I right?

[phillipnz 0]

- Maps need years to be "built". It's not liek in CoD where there could toss a map every other week. Even if they used random map programs they still need a lot of fine tuning.

- IMO helicopter crashes should't spawn, they should "happen" during gameplay. Imagine 50 players on the map, they see a helo that looks like it has problems ( smoke etc. ) Imagine the amount of players suddenly trying to follow said helo and wait until it goes down.

- Events can't be done just like that, you would need to edit the mission in order to do so. But before releasing it you have to check for bugs. Every addition can jeopardize a mission if not checked and checked again. You can program it so it's already there but you can't trigger it from the outside and giving admins permission to trigger events is like having the fox guard henhouse.

- Dynamic servers can't work since every party wants their own server to have at least a bit of control. Otherwise it would be good if multiple servers could manage up to 500 players to be on one single map. Would be pretty jammed..if only there where even bigger maps in the 50 x 50km range...

Obviously I didn't go into very many specifics.

I know that maps have to be "built". This doesn't change anything about what I said.

There are many ways you could instance a "helicopter crash" on a map, spawn was used as a very general term.

These "events" would be able to be pushed mainly serverside if there wasn't any additions made to the map. I'm not sure where I stated admins have control and doing that would be bad as you said. Eg: BIS could push a compulsory update to all public hive server runners. BIS could then (if the felt like) not allow any servers without the update to contact the central hive.

Private Servers would still be available to those who wanted a bit of control. Despite that, many people may get irritated at the fact they can't always get their precious horde of vehicles filled with loot farmed items on their unknown servers.

Edited July 1, 2013 by PhillipNZ

[liquidcactus 719]

black text on dark grey. Need to highlight text manually to read >>

[mick17 93]

The loot will be fixed in the SA.... A global loot spawn cluster thinga ma jig has been annonunced where they can control what (and quantitys of what across all the servers in the WHOLE world), where, and when. Loot maps will no longer be able to be made and it will be very dynamic.

[phillipnz 0]

The loot will be fixed in the SA.... A global loot spawn cluster thinga ma jig has been annonunced where they can control what (and quantitys of what across all the servers in the WHOLE world), where, and when. Loot maps will no longer be able to be made and it will be very dynamic.

You obviously don't understand what loot patterns are.

Heres a quote from the Reddit thread:

"All it takes is one look at a movement map to realise how linear the current loot patterns are... something needs to change to break this cycle, I like a lot of OPs suggestions... this is good stuff. :D"

Edit: Its the repetition of the same loot paths over and over again. People don't vary the way they loot the DayZ maps because there is absolutely no reason to. Looting is terribly linear in the mod and what you name in your post combined with what has been announced for SA does not fix the issue.

Edited July 2, 2013 by PhillipNZ