The future importance of hunting, cooking, the northlands and rare items (with pics!)

[serenityrick 218]

Note: This is the 3rd time attempting to make this thread as the forums crashed a few times in my attempt to post it and I forgot to save my work.. ughhhh. So if my explanations seem rushed or poorly thought out, it's because I'm annoyed at having to retype my thoughts for a 3rd time, lol.

 

The Future importance of Hunting, Cooking, The Northlands and Rare Items.

 

It's difficult to know exactly what Dean has in store for hunting and cooking in the SA. At the moment, neither are implemented and at the moment, survival is rather easy without them. So how do you make either viable or even necessary in the future?

In the mod, hunting is basically a "take or leave" skill. If you don't do it, you can easily ransack a nearby house and get all the food you need. There was no clear benefit to doing either although being able to gut a goat when you got unlucky with food spawns was definitely handy.

In the SA, cooking isn't a requirement at all (it's also not fully implemented) but even if it was, there would be little point to it as you can easily find all the prepared food you need. You can even eat raw rice. It's hard to imagine with the current food spawns dedicating 6+ inventory slots to a gas canister, stove and cookpot when you could just use those slots for prepared food.

 

So how do you balance prepared food spawns and wanting or needing to hunt and cook food? I suggest a sort of invisible tier system where the further inland you go, the rarer prepared food is:

 

 

So the question would then be asked, "Well.. why go North at all then if food is going to be rare?". Well, the rarity of food spawn should be directly proportional to the quality of gear you find. (attachments, tools, vehicles, weapons, clothing, etc). The rarest stuff will be found in the north (not necessarily the best mind you). But there should be some motivation to go inland from the coast but also risk factors. Other than lack of food spawns, perhaps zombies would be more aggressive and in higher numbers in the north for instance.

 

-

 

The obvious contention to an idea like this would be forcing some sort of progression system and making players feel like they HAVE to head north in order to properly play the game and even flies in the face of a total sandbox type world.. And those opinions would and do have credence. But it also solves a few issues that people have with DayZ I think:

 

• Fully geared players camping spawn points on the coast. In a system like this, a player would have to trek a perilous journey northward in order to fully deck himself out and then go alllll the way back to the coast in order to grief "bambis". It's still possible to do but yet, I feel this would deter that mentality a bit.

 

• Gives a legitimate reason to collect, hold onto and use the cooking stove or making fireplaces and hunting animals. 

 

• Would help populate the north a bit more and give a reason to travel there other than to die at the NWAF. Also if the rarest loot is in the north, would give players incentive to explore the new areas that Rocket and his team are building. If things stay as they are, those buildings and areas will simply have the same loot table as any building on the coast which would beg the question, why travel there in the first place?

 

-

 

So thoughts?

Edited December 27, 2013 by serenityrick

[hypergolem 39]

I think it is a great idea! 

[paragouldgamer 2]

The rarity seems great, As it currently stands, the east coast is completely abandoned, and anyone I know that spawns over there just dies until they get close to churno or west of it. Although once vehicles get put in the game and a way to stash some items, I believe people will start going to these places alot more often since as it currently stands, the belota airfield to NW airfield towns get pretty cleaned out. The other day I ran to the northeast airfield just because I've never been there. I ended up suiciding off the tower once I made it there and checked stuff out so I didn't have to run back down because there's nothing there that I can't gain again at belota.

 

The hunting I'm still unsure about. Hunting and cooking brings out alot more danger between the firing of a gun and the light/smoke of a fire or cooking apparatus. The question still remains, why would you want to do this instead of making a trip back to the coast and stocking up on food that would last you days of consecutive play? Especially once vehicles and stashes are in game. I really hope they still implement hunting and cooking in some way because it does sound fun, but how do you make it better than just picking up ready to eat food without hurting freshies or without being too overpowered where you only hunt/cook once per week.

[evoxtom 142]

While I get what you're saying, my experience from the SA so far taught me:

1. The only way to force players north is because the lack of spawned items south. It makes sense anyways- the big cities would get scavenged the earliest.

2. Disease is more common in the south due to higher player numbers, thus forcing them to cleaner, more pristine items in the north (such as most canned food and water south is diseased or ruined from the get-go)

3. Hunting will need to be of great significance so that players move north to partake in it.

4. Higher chance of rare and pristine items for weaponry/ equipment in the north for a better sense of progression

[Firstbornchicken 34]

One thing that jumps to mind is, what is to stop me from hoading food from the first zone before heading north, thus being able to disregard hunting?

 

 

As it stands, once you have eaten enough to become "Healthy" you can go hours without needed to eat or drink again 

[Private Evans 1303]

From what I have seen in the north I would guess that we will get a lot of settlements probably even  big cities placed there in the future. But the large central wood and farmland should be ideal for hunting and living from the land. This could be forced by placing more hunting and fishing gear in barns, farms and deer stands. 

[Thaurus 38]

I like your idea, but one person can survive very long on two canteens and a few canned foods.

I think the overall quantity of canned food should be rare, with that people will hunt to keep their canned food as a reserve.

[serenityrick 218]

One thing that jumps to mind is, what is to stop me from hoading food from the first zone before heading north, thus being able to disregard hunting?

 

 

As it stands, once you have eaten enough to become "Healthy" you can go hours without needed to eat or drink again 

 

While I honestly have no idea, my inkling is that those values will be tweaked once the game progresses. I mean.. they have to right? Based solely on the fact that you CAN cook things, something tells me Rocket will change it so there will be a reason to do so.. like prepared food will actually be a lot more rare across the board as it inches closer to a full release. 

 

Or perhaps the longer your player is alive, the less canned food does for him/her. You can eat a can of spaghetti to satiate yourself and stop yourself from starving but to truly satisfy your character and not be hungry ever 3-5 minutes, you'll have to cook your food.

 

 

I like your idea, but one person can survive very long on two canteens and a few canned foods.

I think the overall quantity of canned food should be rare, with that people will hunt to keep their canned food as a reserve.

 

Agreed. I addressed that as well. My assumption is that the food values for those items will be significantly reduced once both cooking and hunting is introduced. Right now they need high values as that is literally the only source for food right now in the alpha.

 

But again, that's all an assumption.

Edited December 27, 2013 by serenityrick

[Tizzle 90]

Very nice and well thought out idea, interested to see if anything like this is implemented in the (hopefully near) future

[Firstbornchicken 34]

 

 

Or perhaps the longer your player is alive, the less canned food does for him/her. You can eat a can of spaghetti to satiate yourself and stop yourself from starving but to truly satisfy your character and not be hungry ever 3-5 minutes, you'll have to cook your food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It would be cool if the game somehow enforced a diverse diet :) Eating can foods for days could actually kill you in real life, and it could, come to think of it, be a great solution for Dayz.

[CommodoreFrank 13]

It's worth noting that your character's diet will affect your character's status in the future. Eating too much canned food probably will lead to health problems, so hunting and eating well will be important for characters that intend to survive for a long time.

[IcyBlade 48]

Overall makes for an interesting game mechanic, but at the sacrifice of a bit of realism. What I mean by that is that its a bit too gamey to know that one area has items x, and the other has items y.

Perhaps there could be more zones, say 10-20, these could change between being rich in food vs rich in items. This way you wouldn't know what you were getting until you get there, but I'm too keen on that either.

Current system kind of works fairly well IMO, but extra maps were mentioned by the devs perhaps one could use this mechanic in the loot spawn system.

 

 

 

One thing that jumps to mind is, what is to stop me from hoading food from the first zone before heading north, thus being able to disregard hunting?

 

 

As it stands, once you have eaten enough to become "Healthy" you can go hours without needed to eat or drink again 

 

 

While I honestly have no idea, my inkling is that those values will be tweaked once the game progresses. I mean.. they have to right? Based solely on the fact that you CAN cook things, something tells me Rocket will change it so there will be a reason to do so.. like prepared food will actually be a lot more rare across the board as it inches closer to a full release. 

 

Or perhaps the longer your player is alive, the less canned food does for him/her. You can eat a can of spaghetti to satiate yourself and stop yourself from starving but to truly satisfy your character and not be hungry ever 3-5 minutes, you'll have to cook your food.

 

 

 

Doesn't seem like an issue to me, makes sense that you would stock up on food before moving into an area with scarce food. Seems like you envisaged players moving from one area to the next to represent their progress like a ranking system, but I think the ability to diversely move between the areas depending on your needs is interesting.

[DevilDog (DayZ) 455]

I think canned food will have a chance to get you sick, unless you use the disinfectant spray to clean it. Also as cans get damaged it will/should have a chance to get you sick. So right off the bat hunting is cleaner/safer.

 

Now I will present the 'nutrition' facts to give an example of why hunting > gathering. (Note: These are numbers from the Wiki, I have no clue where they got them).

 

Can Baked Beans

Energy Water Uses Stomach Calorie 462 330 4 440 299

 

Wild Steaks (All listed as the same right now, not sure if that is meant to be)

Energy Water Uses Stomach Calorie 735 189 1 300

114

 

 

By this you can see that the fresh meat gives you a bigger boost to energy while taking up less stomach space. Remember eating too much food at once will make you sick.

 

 

These are the numbers for canned Tuna vs fresh tuna.

Canned - 475 energy

Fresh - 2000 energy

 

That is a huge benefit.

 

 

Another benefit is the diminishing return of food. So you may think you will just eat a bunch of cans rather than a few steaks but the more food you eat at once the less benefit it will have. No more carbo-loading like a marathon runner.

 

 

Another benefit of the cooking set is water. Right now all water in game is clean. That won't always be the case. You will either have to carry water purification tablets to clean water OR use your cooking set to boil it.

 

So your choice. Delegate 6 slots for your cooking gear or carry canned food + soda or water tablets. Plus keep in mind your cans can get damaged and get you sick. The survival aspect of this game seems to be getting a huge boost.

[serenityrick 218]

I think canned food will have a chance to get you sick, unless you use the disinfectant spray to clean it. Also as cans get damaged it will/should have a chance to get you sick. So right off the bat hunting is cleaner/safer.

 

Now I will present the 'nutrition' facts to give an example of why hunting > gathering. (Note: These are numbers from the Wiki, I have no clue where they got them).

 

Can Baked Beans

Energy Water Uses Stomach Calorie 462 330 4 440 299

 

Wild Steaks (All listed as the same right now, not sure if that is meant to be)

Energy Water Uses Stomach Calorie 735 189 1 300

114

 

 

By this you can see that the fresh meat gives you a bigger boost to energy while taking up less stomach space. Remember eating too much food at once will make you sick.

 

 

These are the numbers for canned Tuna vs fresh tuna.

Canned - 475 energy

Fresh - 2000 energy

 

That is a huge benefit.

 

 

Another benefit is the diminishing return of food. So you may think you will just eat a bunch of cans rather than a few steaks but the more food you eat at once the less benefit it will have. No more carbo-loading like a marathon runner.

 

 

Another benefit of the cooking set is water. Right now all water in game is clean. That won't always be the case. You will either have to carry water purification tablets to clean water OR use your cooking set to boil it.

 

So your choice. Delegate 6 slots for your cooking gear or carry canned food + soda or water tablets. Plus keep in mind your cans can get damaged and get you sick. The survival aspect of this game seems to be getting a huge boost.

 

The increased chance of sickness and diminishing returns on canned food would definitely be a plus and reason to cook, fish and hunt (completely forgot about fishing). That's definitely stepping in the right direction

[Thaurus 38]

What about a option to grow crops??

Would be Nice in a Project Zomboid style

[DevilDog (DayZ) 455]

What about a option to grow crops??

Would be Nice in a Project Zomboid style

I have heard many times they plan on having a farming type of system.

[badman85@gmail.com 14]

very nice !

i had a similar idea iv been trying to prepare . more in the area of zoning wildlife habitats & territories . 

smaller game ( along with farm animals ) would reside closer around the cost whilst larger game reside more north .

and predators in the interior , making travel back & forth between inland & north more treacherous , as well as sniper control .

so next time you see a small pack of wolves off in the distance think twice before killing them , they might be stalking the sniper waiting for you around the next clearing .

ill post full concept when its organized . im just glad Deen is adamant about the hunting aspects .

 

but i do very much like the concept of food being more scarce up north ! it is supposed to be the "wilderness" right .

good pic too .

[Zogvarn 118]

I really like this idea and the suggestions that followed. One thing we are not taking into consideration is zombie area concentration (ZAC). Large cities would naturally have a higher ZAC than the rural areas in the center of the maps. This indicates that the coastal areas would be harder to loot even if there is more canned food there due to it being less safe (higher zombie count and lack of better weapons).  Sure 1-3 zombies now are easily handled with an axe or M4, but get say 10-15 of them after you and things get a lot harder to deal with.

 

I believe the ZAC will naturally push players into the north of the map. Add in the suggestions here for hunting/fishing and area dispersion of game will really make for interesting gameplay. It is one of the reasons I'm excited as hell for the future of this game.

[GrumpyFragger 67]

While the concept is nice, it would just be one more reason for the majority to never leave the coast line.

[serenityrick 218]

While the concept is nice, it would just be one more reason for the majority to never leave the coast line.

 

If the rarest loot is inland, that's a pretty good incentive to trek that way, don't you think?

[Color (DayZ) 132]

Would rather have it all the way up north so that we have people going up north instead of staying by the coast.

[-zEr0- 2]

good idea! I have travelled carefully through the North but haven't seen anyone yet. It's quiet lonely above both northern airfields.They should really add some cities and interesting things in the very North of the map to make it worth going there. The very North of the map is so huge but there is nothing but Woods and fields....

[johnm81 15]

Note: This is the 3rd time attempting to make this thread as the forums crashed a few times in my attempt to post it and I forgot to save my work.. ughhhh. So if my explanations seem rushed or poorly thought out, it's because I'm annoyed at having to retype my thoughts for a 3rd time, lol.

 

The Future importance of Hunting, Cooking, The Northlands and Rare Items.

 

It's difficult to know exactly what Dean has in store for hunting and cooking in the SA. At the moment, neither are implemented and at the moment, survival is rather easy without them. So how do you make either viable or even necessary in the future?

In the mod, hunting is basically a "take or leave" skill. If you don't do it, you can easily ransack a nearby house and get all the food you need. There was no clear benefit to doing either although being able to gut a goat when you got unlucky with food spawns was definitely handy.

In the SA, cooking isn't a requirement at all (it's also not fully implemented) but even if it was, there would be little point to it as you can easily find all the prepared food you need. You can even eat raw rice. It's hard to imagine with the current food spawns dedicating 6+ inventory slots to a gas canister, stove and cookpot when you could just use those slots for prepared food.

 

So how do you balance prepared food spawns and wanting or needing to hunt and cook food? I suggest a sort of invisible tier system where the further inland you go, the rarer prepared food is:

 

 

So the question would then be asked, "Well.. why go North at all then if food is going to be rare?". Well, the rarity of food spawn should be directly proportional to the quality of gear you find. (attachments, tools, vehicles, weapons, clothing, etc). The rarest stuff will be found in the north (not necessarily the best mind you). But there should be some motivation to go inland from the coast but also risk factors. Other than lack of food spawns, perhaps zombies would be more aggressive and in higher numbers in the north for instance.

 

-

 

The obvious contention to an idea like this would be forcing some sort of progression system and making players feel like they HAVE to head north in order to properly play the game and even flies in the face of a total sandbox type world.. And those opinions would and do have credence. But it also solves a few issues that people have with DayZ I think:

 

• Fully geared players camping spawn points on the coast. In a system like this, a player would have to trek a perilous journey northward in order to fully deck himself out and then go alllll the way back to the coast in order to grief "bambis". It's still possible to do but yet, I feel this would deter that mentality a bit.

 

• Gives a legitimate reason to collect, hold onto and use the cooking stove or making fireplaces and hunting animals. 

 

• Would help populate the north a bit more and give a reason to travel there other than to die at the NWAF. Also if the rarest loot is in the north, would give players incentive to explore the new areas that Rocket and his team are building. If things stay as they are, those buildings and areas will simply have the same loot table as any building on the coast which would beg the question, why travel there in the first place?

 

-

 

So thoughts?

 

 

I like the idea. Me personally, I want to play DayZ for the survival aspect not so much the pvp. And so, I would take your idea and go even farther. I don't persay like the idea of forcing others into trying to survive in the woods, rather for players like me, simply offering me the ability to do so would be enough for my avatar to flip the world the middle finger and leave civilization. Crafting I would like to see to enable this:

 

Hunting:

1. Animals ranging from small game to large game with an AI that can be aggressive. A large prey item should be dangerous if I wound it or miss.

2. Small game should have migration paths (more on this later).

 

Foraging:

1. Plants should spawn edible parts for harvesting. Textures should be developed that will only be rendered when the player examines the part in their inventory. Unique textures should identify the plant part as edible, needs to be cooked first, or a poisonous species. 

2. Other plants should be an indication to animal spawn spots. Low lying leafy green plants indicate rabbit spawns ect...

 

Tools:

1. Stones should be crafted to crude blades, Blades make carved tools, ect.. Point is I should be able to collect enough items to start gearing up as a mountain man without ever having to set foot into a town. 

2. Weapons such as bows or cross bows with crafted ammo should be open to me as well.

 

Traps:

1. Animals that have migration paths can be trapped if a survivor knows where those paths are.

2. Traps can be set off by human players and are just as lethal. A set trap should be very hard to spot but not impossible if a human is looking for it.

 

Shelters

1. Lean-to, Debris huts, ect... craft-able for storage/weather protection and textured with the same pallet as the foliage around it to make it very hard to spot.

2. Temperature/weather should be put back in DayZ and necessitate the use of shelters and fires to survive esp if a rain/snow storm is moving through.

[dayzhopeful 30]

Its a great idea but i think it would be too much for any casual player thus losing a lot of players. I personally prefer the idea they have at the moment where hunting can become an alternative to having to go into towns for food, i have always had the idea that when the servers are much bigger with a 100 plus people the towns and villages would become death traps thus forcing the new players to live off the land for a while till they find some decent loot.

[GrumpyFragger 67]

While the concept is nice, it would just be one more reason for the majority to never leave the coast line.

 

If the rarest loot is inland, that's a pretty good incentive to trek that way, don't you think?

 

The thing is, that with this model you will not motivate anyone who has already shit in his pants to leave the coast as you can easily survive with a can-opener, hatchet and an Enfield or whatever lowend Gun the coast line will spawn in future. If lootspawns would decrease because of player density ( because that would make sense ) then coast line huggers had a motivation to venture up north and stop playing CoD on the shore.