An Educated Opinion on Standalone 2 days after release

[DMZ_Sniper 73]

WARNING: This is for people who want an opinion in more than one sentence. This is a long read. Even so, for your convenience I have highlighted the pros and cons at the moment. Enjoy!

 

Okay, so, the fancy title aside, the main question:

Does this game even work?

Yes, it does, mostly, sort of, kinda. It's bare bones as is, but what is there usually works fairly well even for me.

 

I started on the coast a few days ago after being given a free code by a buddy (Thanks Luckyshot!) and the first thing I noticed:

 

+ The movement feels much, much smoother than the mod.

 

I mean for me, it's a difference of night and day. You walk around, run around, creep around or crawl around and all of those feel really, really smooth. Yes, it still looks like your character is an animatron with buggy software, but my god is it smooth. Did I say it was smooth?

So then I found a crowbar in a nearby industrial and equipped it, looking for some zombies to smash. I immediately noted the next good points:

 

+ Zombies no longer serve as player indicators

 

They spawn at restart and if killed, stay dead. Simple, efficient, but also bad:

 

- Zombies only spawn on restart and there are very few of them

 

There are far too few between and once killed, towns become ghosttowns. Which as is, also has benefits, like being able to loot in peace and not worry about zombie glitches:

 

- Zombies are very, very glitchy

 

They will go through walls if needed(though I have spotted them using doors), they have a ridiculously long range on melee attacks and they will run everywhere and through everything. Which brings me to my next point:

 

+ Zombies run everywhere

 

No more safe hiding indoors, zeds will come and get you at speed. You want to go loot that barracks and you draw aggro, better have a melee or firearm ready to dispatch em. Melee is particularly interesting:

 

+ Melee weapons are, if buggy, much more fun to use[opinion].

 

Swing arcs mean you have to consider timing and room before attacking/ A fire axe, being a one hit kill, is hampered indoors if you don't have a wide enough arc to swing it, while smaller weapons still work well. This, coupled with the fact that you can swing while moving, also means that:

 

- Zombies are extremely easy to dispatch without taking a single hit using melee

 

I will leave it up to you how this is done, but an open field, 1-3 zombies and a melee weapon usually mean you can fight them without ever taking a hit.

 

When you do finally get to the looting, you should see a few nice things. I myself was pleasantly surprised to see the 'inventory tetris' mechanic you have to play:

 

+ Inventory now not only requires space management, but also volume management.

 

Putting a cereal box next to a sidearm in your 6 slot pants is not going to work. You're going to have to move around stuff in your backpack, pants, shirt, underwear or simply have to find pants with more pockets. You are constantly scrounging the place for bigger pants, shirts, backpacks, helmets and holsters to satisfy your hoarding mentalities. Ammo now needs to be loaded into magazines and kept safe in a storage box, tools now take up inventory space and actually have to be used(can opener for tin cans is the most notable example).

 

+ A lot of customization regarding clothing, weapons, and player characters

 

You can find a wide variety of clothing items which have the same carrying capacity but look different and pick the prettiest one, or you can go strictly for the powergaming approach and pick out the best camouflaged items with the most holding space. This also has its downsides:

 

- There are items which are flat-out better in every way

 

I have only seen one shirt/hoodie with 6 item slots and it appears to be the most camouflaged one as well, making it the supreme choice. Fun fact: Backpacks don't suffer from this as much, since the biggest backpack is not the most camouflaged one. The Hunter Backpack with 30 slots is smaller than the Mountain Backpack with 35, but at the same time it's olive, making it hard to spot.

 

And naturally, I have to address another big issue at the moment:

 

- There is very little weapon variety

 

I expect this to be a temporary issue, but I do have to say that the weapons which are in and which I have seen (M4, Mosin, FXJ(or whatever the pistol is called)) are really customizable and offer a good basis to build on.

 

Some more good stuff, especially in cities:

 

+ Many, many buildings are enterable

 

Naturally, at the end of the alpha/beta cycle I would like to see all the buildings enterable, such as Panthera Island did it on the mod, but you can enter almost every building you see and you have to really scrounge for loot once inside, which also means:

 

+ Looting a city takes much, much longer than in the mod

 

You will be spending hours in Cherno if you want to loot all of it and even looting places like NWAF now takes a good half an hour if you maintain stealth.

 

+ The map is expanded with new territories

 

There are now many places to visit which will get you geared, there is also an absolute ton of loot lying around the place and if you are not at one of the hotspots(Balota), other players will usually be of little concern to you while looting. Should you manage to find some, you now have multiple options to deal with them:

 

+ Players can be interacted with in different ways

 

Handcuff them, force them to strip, force feed them or shoot them, the standalone adds a few new features to undoubtedly make the sadistic amongst us scream in glee. The more this area gets expanded, the less KoS we will hopefully see. And speaking of players:

 

- People are still dicks and will still shoot on sight

 

This hasn't changed since the mod, nor will it change soon. Expect to die just because you can. Maybe your killer is testing his new rifle:

 

+ Weapons feel much more satisfying and have a noticeable weight behind them

 

This goes mainly for firearms, but you should notice a little on the melee weapons as well.Shooting a zombie just feels good as your weapon kicks back, a casing ejects and you see a splatter of blood on the zed's head

 

- Bugs and Hackers

 

You bought an Early Access Alpha. You are expected to report bugs. This is not an early demo, so don't expect good functionality. Expect character wipes, rock ninjas killing you, randomly teleporting outside of buildings, hackers to ruin your day and your gear to disappear and glitch every single time you use it and sometimes even if you don't. This is an unfinished product, be glad if something works instead of being angry when something doesn't.

 

- Loot spawning only at restart means you won't find any if you're not the first one there

 

If you are in a big city two hours after restart, don't expect to find anything. While pondering your bad luck, you should think that there is more to the map than the coast:

 

+ Loot spawning at restart means you have to move inland if you want gear

 

Moving north from the coast will usually mean the first village you visit will be fully stocked on gear, because most bambies are deathmatching in the bigger cities. As long as you don't mind walking, loot should not be a problem.

 

+ The food/thirst/hunger/sickness system is now clear

 

The food and drink issue has been resolved in a most helpful manner, with the inventory indicators now also indicating when you are healthy and actively regenerating blood.

 

Got something to add or correct(Grammar Nazis are most welcome)? Post here!

Edited December 20, 2013 by DMZ_Sniper

[Target Practice (DayZ) 1335]

Yeah, generally a pretty balanced and reasonable assessment of the game at this stage, I feel - I'd probably have thrown something in about the slightly buggy/unclear thirst/food/rest system, but otherwise it's a very good rundown on where things are right now.

[DMZ_Sniper 73]

Yeah, generally a pretty balanced and reasonable assessment of the game at this stage, I feel - I'd probably have thrown something in about the slightly buggy/unclear thirst/food/rest system, but otherwise it's a very good rundown on where things are right now.

 

Thank you for the opinion.

The food system stuff is more akin to a guide, should I write one? :P

[Target Practice (DayZ) 1335]

Haha, nah, I meant I'd have probably also said something along the lines of 'the system for telling you when you're hungry/thirsty whatever isn't really as clear as it could be.'

 

At the moment, you can drink some water, get a 'your thirst is quenched' message, but still only be at about 35% water.

[DMZ_Sniper 73]

Done! Added your suggestion too. I will be updating this as I go along.

[DMZ_Sniper 73]

Updated some minor issues.

[DMZ_Sniper 73]

Just for all those haters up there ;)

[DMZ_Sniper 73]

Adjusted for latest patch!

[ProGamerGov 74]

This is not an issue:

"There are items which are flat-out better in every way

I have only seen one shirt/hoodie with 6 item slots and it appears to be the most camouflaged one as well, making it the supreme choice. Fun fact: Backpacks don't suffer from this as much, since the biggest backpack is not the most camouflaged one. The Hunter Backpack with 30 slots is smaller than the Mountain Backpack with 35, but at the same time it's olive, making it hard to spot."

This is intentional, stuff doesn't have to be balanced. This is not an issue.