The only solution for DayZ: Simulation.

[sab 32]

I have to admit, I'm impressed with the amount of specifics you went into. Normally I would've taken one look at the length of the post and decided it wasn't worth it, seeing as most suggestions about topics in general have been the same thing over and over again. I've always been fairly passionate about vehicles, including helicopters, and I'd definitely been looking forward to a far more advanced medical system than what was in the mod as I followed DayZ. I'm glad someone is considering options for the future, even though it may be awhile until we see any of it, as I find it refreshing.

Vehicles

First off, your vehicle suggestion was great, I agree with it, however I did have a concern. You mentioned having vehicles as "quite common", but of course they would have more or less badly damaged/ruined parts. I don't know how I would feel about having vehicles as a very common find just so you can pick and choose which one you like best. I agree they should be more common if you were to implement such a system, but I feel if possible, that it might be a good idea to maybe have spare parts in broken down wrecks.

For example, you can now open the doors/trunk of most car wrecks, why not say the hood to find parts in the future? To clarify, my concern would be that finding an actual car that doesn't have a completely totaled engine (to the point where it would be pointless to replace parts on it), might be too common.

Of course there is always room for tweaking and I apologize if I made an incorrect assumption regarding the amount of cars you had in mind. Essentially I believe that on top of the increased difficulty from the part system that you suggested, maybe make actual repairable cars uncommon, but not rare. Just a rough idea, but potentially 2 cars per small towns, maybe 4 - 5+ per major city. Not so much that you run into them every five seconds, but not too little that it's like the mod in terms of finding a repairable vehicle. Being able to find parts in static car wrecks would, in my opinion help balance it out.

On a side note, as I was reading your post regarding having to diagnose the car problem, excellent suggestion. I like it. The thought that immediately popped into my head that I felt I might be able to add onto it (assuming this is accurate to the region of Chernarus and the vehicles they drive): dashboard lights.

 

Honestly, I don't know much about their cars, but if I had to take a guess I figure they would have something like this in one form or another. Something that notifies/alerts them to the presence of the problem, and something that may even help you diagnose the problem. Apart from that, obvious signs like stuttering, backfiring, engine failure, horrible gear grinding noises, etc, could be used to help in that diagnosis process as well.

Helicopters

I felt you pretty much covered this well and I agree again. I've never played Take on Helicopters, but throughout the mod I was the pilot for our squad nine times out of ten. I always felt it was lacking/too easy to get a hang of. Helicopters should, in my opinion, be complex machines to operate, not something you just hop in, press "Q" and take off. I'm not saying it should be an intense process that is grueling to learn, but I'd like to at least put some thought into it. I did watch the video and I could see something as simple as that working well, in turn adding on to the amount of satisfaction you would get from working so hard to repair it. I joked with my friend a little bit and mentioned that once I got the start-up process down, I could write it on a piece of paper (in-game) and we could store it somewhere inside the helicopter (he had made a suggestion regarding in-vehicle storage here if you were interested) in case one of the other squad members wanted to give flying a try when I'm not around.

Medicine Stuff

As I said above in my post, I'd been looking forward to a far more advanced medical system for a long time. I'm going to keep this reply short, seeing as I don't think I'm necessarily qualified to say what would be realistic/authentic or not. Suffice to say, I liked your suggestion regarding advancing the medical systems and personally don't feel it would become tedious. My only concern would be, whenever I'd die to another player, I was almost always filled with lead to an excruciating point. I feel having to remove 20 - 30 bullets from my body would be a bit... overkill, I guess. Though to be fair, at that point I doubt I'd survive long enough to go through the surgery, so in a way it works itself out. :P Again, definitely looking forward to seeing what they will do with the medical system and I apologize for any incorrect assumptions.
 

EDIT: Pretty much just deleted at least 1,000 words worth of reply on accident, and the auto save function failed me so I'm going to make the rest as short as possible.

 

Hunting + Gathering

 

I agree, definitely would like to see hunting as a huge part of this game. My friends and I would enjoy living off the land from time to time. Making a bonfire in in the middle of camp as an ominous storm visibly approaches from the horizon. Maybe use the fire and a spit to roast meat we just hunted via bow or hunting rifle, we'd also use the propane lighters/cookers just to get an immersive feel in that aspect. I would like to see dangerous animals: boars, bears, wolves, like you suggested, maybe even snakes.

 

It would be nice to have some dangerous aspects to the wilderness apart from getting lost and dying of starvation/dehydration, hypothermia (don't think that's implemented yet assuming it's planned), falling off a cliff and whatever else you could think of. I think I remember Rocket mentioning something about it either being difficult or impossible, however. I wouldn't quote me on that though. Anyone up for spear or net fishing? Hell, just making your own fishing pole out of some sticks and wiring would be great. Definitely looking forward to seeing DayZ's future in this category.

 

Temperatures

 

I noticed you mentioned under construction a suggestion for temperature. I'm guessing most are aware of this, including you, that the mod had temperatures in it, albeit a fairly basic system. That being said I imagine they'll be adding it later on down the road. I've noticed that when I pick up raincoats, it says "Wet" (ironic) under the condition, I also picked up a hat earlier today that said "Damp" in the same spot. I'm guessing these might be placeholders for a potential planned temperature system. I'd definitely be glad to see clothing actually affecting your body temperature as well. (Warm clothes allowing you to stay out longer from many heat sources, or wet clothes making you colder and requiring to dry out).

 

For The Rest

 

I'm not a very creative person, so I'm just going to avoid suggesting anything in these areas and trust the dev's judgement. I agree, however, that zombies should be a very formidable force, and that construction should be a big part of DayZ. Of course, most of these features you suggested/discussed probably won't be implemented for awhile, more important issues at hand and what not.

 

All The Simulation Talk

 

Assuming DayZ is ultimately a survival simulator, I think it's safe to say that it could be considered a grouping of more watered down simulators that ultimately make up the reality behind survival, let me explain the best I can. (I'll use ZedsDeadBaby's post as a reference).

 

As an example, say you were playing a military simulator. Being completely realistic, like a real simulator should be, it would probably have you taking care of almost every detail, like loading one bullet into a magazine at a time, wiping your scope off if dirt or any other particles that get on it, very in-depth gun maintenance, sighting in (not to be confused with zeroing), etc. What DayZ does is it essentially takes the basic parts of the simulator, and turns them into simple actions. I can't say for sure how they'll handle gun maintenance, but a very understandable example would be putting say, 30 bullets into a magazine at once instead of one by one, which you can still do if you so desired.

 

Likewise, with the medical ideas that SalamanderAnder suggested, he's not saying you're going to go into their body and find the bullet, grab it, then pull it out like you would in an actual Bullet Removal Simulator. Instead, from what I understand, he wants an authentic approach to medical care that in my opinion is of an acceptable level. Removing a bullet seems like a huge part of getting shot, not just bandaging the wound and never having to deal with it again.

 

As a third example, I imagine starting up a helicopter and flying it is a lot more complex than what Take on Helicopters depicts.

 

All of these "minor" categories: firearms, hunger/thirst, vehicles/helicopters, medical, hunting + gathering, could be increased in complexity to such a degree that it would be ridiculous to try and even learn how to do them, but with a bit of simplicity and balance applied to each and every one, each feature might not seem like a big deal alone, but combined actually make up a great survival simulator.

 

All of that being said, I realize most of my post was not really useful, the majority was me just agreeing and adding my opinion here and there. Just glad to see someone putting so much effort into suggestions that I haven't seen much talk about before, I figured I'd work at a half-decent response.

Edited January 3, 2014 by Sab

[gregor (DayZ) 95]

About vehicles. I prefer if most reliable vehicles in Chernarus remain the diesel trucks. Big chunky soviet (mostly) trucks. Also i hope, that overall speed of vehicles would be lowered.

What about a helicopter, my humbling opinion is, that they don't fit good in postapocalyptic Cherno. AN-2, Pilatus Porter PC-6 or a very light aircraft seems more logical. Especially with repair options.

 

A light aircraft ..

 

[BigCountry 26]

Great ideas and I think maybe you should head a team and build a new game. You could flesh out a lot of these ideas in a turn by turn based game to start with, just to make it easier to test the concepts etc

:D

 

Dayz is heading more down the lines to Call of Duty lol

:(

Edited January 3, 2014 by BigCountry

[The_Man 393]

I suggest that we be allowed to roll around in mud to make our own camouflage

 

 

I would also like to suggest that when hunting...people should have to "smoke" their clothes to remove the musk and body odor from the clothes. If they do not do this then important game such as buck or deer will be nearly impossible to get close enough to shoot at with a low caliber weapon. To smoke their clothes they would just need to make a fire then right click on their clothes in the inventory near the fire. An option called "smoke clothes" would appear. 

[PongoZ 127]

"Another key feature of this cell system is that travelling into a new cell increases the value of your character's life, as you would not be able to respawn in what I call the "frontier" cells. "

Great concept. And the game could expand to un-spawnable realms to add interest.

combined with cool gear only available in remote locations and you have a good reason to stay alive.

 

The level of simulation for each kind of activity could be of course scaled to the effect wanted in game, but as a path I think selective simulation enhancement is cool.

 

In the case of cars, you make the thing not start if you do something wrong, or turn over but not start etc. 

In the case of Helos, you make it so the pre flight will show you the repair was not successful, or degrade the behavior of the aircraft with a poor repair.

 

I think Walking Dead kind of surgery would be cool in the game. 

[Roshi (DayZ) 397]

After critiquing Ander's medical system ideas I feel that I should put mine on the table for discussion:

 

Part 1: Treating yourself http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/161763-medical-system-for-dayz-part-1-%E2%80%93-self-treatment-of-wounds/

 

Part 2: Treating others http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/161874-medical-system-for-dayz-part-2-emergency-care-for-other-players/

[SalamanderAnder (DayZ) 1747]

After critiquing Ander's medical system ideas I feel that I should put mine on the table for discussion:

 

Part 1: Treating yourself http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/161763-medical-system-for-dayz-part-1-%E2%80%93-self-treatment-of-wounds/

 

Part 2: Treating others http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/161874-medical-system-for-dayz-part-2-emergency-care-for-other-players/

 

Those are some pretty good ideas, I especially like the stuff about inspecting a wound and using different tools like a saline flush or boiling water to prevent an infection. Sort of reminds me of the diagnosis system from Americas Army 3.

[bobotype3334 160]

Nice, but decrease the complexity on a lot of stuff if you want any of this to be viable for the developers: For instance, throw all the different car parts you listed into the generic category of "gears." Different areas bleeding on the body is unnecessary in terms of the game or anti-game-- Just the severity of the wound is important. Otherwise, good stuff. We think alike on the construction and hunting and wildlife issues, although you also forgot the elusive Russian beaver, pigs, chicken, sheep, cattle, birds, and possibly even the rare Amur tiger.

[airtonix (DayZ) 22]

Large maps with portals/transitions to other areas which have different biomes would be great.

 

However before you can support mega maps, the server software needs to support horizontal scaling. At the moment it's a piece of software created by very naive people and I don't think Bohemia Interactive are capable of creating the technical knowledge in order to achieve this. I say this because software developers are directed by people with money, no technical skills, and disparate view on how software should be created.

 

It will be another group of people who have more modern software development methodologies, a group who understands that Linux is superior to Windows, a group that knows the game engine should have separate plugin architecture for user interface interface mods and server side mods.

 

That group won't be Bohemia Interactive. It might be the Outterra team.

[leefriendfield 438]

Large maps with portals/transitions to other areas which have different biomes would be great.

 

However before you can support mega maps, the server software needs to support horizontal scaling. At the moment it's a piece of software created by very naive people and I don't think Bohemia Interactive are capable of creating the technical knowledge in order to achieve this. I say this because software developers are directed by people with money, no technical skills, and disparate view on how software should be created.

 

It will be another group of people who have more modern software development methodologies, a group who understands that Linux is superior to Windows, a group that knows the game engine should have separate plugin architecture for user interface interface mods and server side mods.

 

That group won't be Bohemia Interactive. It might be the Outterra team.

Why revive this thread?

[gibonez 3633]

Why revive this thread?

 

Why not its a great thread with people actually discussing the game.

 

Its not one of those shit threads that litter these forums lately you know the whole

 

"Where is the LRS?"

"To the bandit at balota ty"

[Valadain 270]

 

 

 

 

I agree. Look, let's admit. In the real world, a gunshot to the belly = death. But this is a game, and therefore it's a bit unfair to not offer ways around it. I'm not saying these are the most "realistic" of options, but I think the right balance between realism and game is the key. I know that surgery isn't a small thing in real life. But the dice rolls could be tweaked to make it more realistic. Let's say you get intestinal damage, that should be an organ that has a very high chance of killing you. But a liver on the other hand, is surprisingly resilient. Livers can even be cut in half and will grow back to their full size. I just think it would be more interesting than "oh, I bandaged, therefore I'm okay." I think of The Last of Us, (spoilers>) When Joel get's impaled.

 

This is just a way to tell more compelling stories. Nobody wants to face the idea of cutting into another person and removing a bullet, trying to save their life. And let's be honest, a lot of people are just going to choose to hit "Respawn" or have their buddy shoot them in the head. It doesn't mean that the option shouldn't be there. I mean, if he's gonna die anyway, you might as well try and do whatever you can to save his life, right?

 

 

I agree with this. People want crafted bows and arrows which is terribly unrealistic. They want to craft usable flint weapons, which is absolutely unrealistic (seriously, try it, I've done it and you get mostly a broken piece of flint, that yeah, might be sharp, but isn't going to be a balanced arrow head). People even want throwing weapons which won't do jack to a zombie as anything light enough to carry in quantity isn't going to penetrate a skull and the actual skill is hard as hell to learn with any reliability.

 

But you know what? I don't care and I hope people get what they want. I hope it doesn't become the focus of the game, but if people want to throw knives and craft bows and arrows in addition to guns, fine with me, even with it being terribly unrealistic.

 

A sandbox game should provide a lot of mechanics, useful items and places, challenging enemies, some dangers and things to do, then get out of the way of the players and let them build the rest of the game. By balancing, this, and changing that behavior, and trying to force the game to be played a particular way, you generally end up ruining everything.

 

My biggest fear about the end-result of this game, isn't that zombies will walk through walls still or that flashlights will suck, it is that so many resources will be spent on bringing the little things to absolute perfection, rather than making some compromises, that there won't be a world robust enough to support the single most important thing that made the DayZ Mod. A world created by players.

[thelonewarrior 886]

OP

Have my beans

Have all of them

I agree with this. People want crafted bows and arrows which is terribly unrealistic. They want to craft usable flint weapons, which is absolutely unrealistic (seriously, try it, I've done it and you get mostly a broken piece of flint, that yeah, might be sharp, but isn't going to be a balanced arrow head).

Just thought I'd reply to this

When I was about 13-14 as a kid I made a makeshift crossbow (I was a strange child) using some wood I cut up in woodwork class at school and with some rope made a turn handle that tightened the draw string and made a number of wooden arrows using a knife to just carve from wood

I tell you, firing that it could piece an apple and sometimes caused the apple to explode

I also tried making a bow, but although it worked I didn't know the first thing about which wood to use and most of the time I would fire it once or twice before it broke

But as far as improvised weapons go, a crossbow isn't that hard to make

Edited March 22, 2014 by Regulator Lone Warrior

[Valadain 270]

OP

Have my beans

Have all of them

Just thought I'd reply to this

When I was about 13-14 as a kid I made a makeshift crossbow (I was a strange child) using some wood I cut up in woodwork class at school and with some rope made a turn handle that tightened the draw string and made a number of wooden arrows using a knife to just carve from wood

I tell you, firing that it could piece an apple and sometimes caused the apple to explode

I also tried making a bow, but although it worked I didn't know the first thing about which wood to use and most of the time I would fire it once or twice before it broke

But as far as improvised weapons go, a crossbow isn't that hard to make

 

It isn't so much that they are hard to make, but rather that they are hard to make well. Punching through an apple and punching through a person, wearing all manner of potential gear, and having bones, are two different things.

 

As I said though, I don't have a problem with it being in game. I love realism, but concessions will sometimes need to be made here and there.

[Twixxer 159]

Salamander Ander for president!

[thelonewarrior 886]

It isn't so much that they are hard to make, but rather that they are hard to make well. Punching through an apple and punching through a person, wearing all manner of potential gear, and having bones, are two different things. As I said though, I don't have a problem with it being in game. I love realism, but concessions will sometimes need to be made here and there.

Yeah I forgot to add that sorry

It wasn't very effective and I doubt it would have been able to kill someone (unless you hit them in the neck)

But you could easily wound someone with it

My real point was that myself with limited knowledge could make a basic design so it's quite possible that someone with some knowledge could make a fairly deadly weapon with the right tools

So in that respect your right, making a well balanced weapon like a crossbow should be an option but should need to have skill to make one that's effective

But like maintaining a gun it should require a good skill and knowledge and of course materials that would need to be found

Personally if they allowed crafting of such weapons like bows and crossbows It would be a main priority of mine to make one for silent zombie kills now that they respawn

Edited March 22, 2014 by Regulator Lone Warrior

[pacific_coast 632]

interesting ideas, however most are just making this game more complicated and time consuming than is necessary.

there is a point where crafting, collecting, repairing, building, hunting, healing and combat stop being equal parts of one game, and instead become tideous and grinding.

 

i expect there will be a place for ultra-realism side-action character maintanace, but that place is on private modded servers.

 

a wide and populated player base does not need this much "anti-game" in their game and will reject it.

 

"anti-game" being code for "faux-hardcore filler roleplay junk features that mostly amount to farming"

[Karmaterror 982]

Nice post, this is very much how I hope Dayz develops.

 

One thing id add is you mentioned multiple people interacting at the same time for construction. One iv always wanted to see is 2 or more pushing a car together would give a 3rd in the driver seat an "attempt bump start" scroll option, if the battery was dead. Could be a chance to fail if the car is going too slowly, the skill is looking at the speedo for the right speed :)

[leefriendfield 438]

interesting ideas, however most are just making this game more complicated and time consuming than is necessary.

there is a point where crafting, collecting, repairing, building, hunting, healing and combat stop being equal parts of one game, and instead become tideous and grinding.

 

i expect there will be a place for ultra-realism side-action character maintanace, but that place is on private modded servers.

 

a wide and populated player base does not need this much "anti-game" in their game and will reject it.

 

"anti-game" being code for "faux-hardcore filler roleplay junk features that mostly amount to farming"

That's what scares me the most in dayz is that this game will turn into a grind.

[River Lizard 47]

New spawns, spawn with a career history....some have medical history, some have hunting history, some are just librarians.  If you spawn as a doctor, you can perform surgery on other players with a higher success rate vs a librarian.   If you're ex-military your skill level in aiming and dealing with weapon repairs are better than say a lawyer's skill level.  Each new spawn is a random selection of a career so you never know what skill levels you'll have until you spawn.  If you spawn as a lawyer and attempt to do surgery, your tab key doesn't provide help with what tools to use to provide medical attention to another player vs a medical player would have these stats within their tab key.  If you find a box of ammo, a military player would know whether it's useful or not to pickup the ammo or not (by weapons within a 25 ft. range around the military player so it includes his team mates weapons too)...but a player who has some other type of skill wouldn't know if it was wise to pickup the ammo or not.

[Iezza 108]

This post is absolutely amazing Salamander, in depth and i agree with all points.

 

How about the posiblilites of transplants if someone is under 33% hp on a certain place? Would require surgical equipment and a organ ( able to salvage from dead bodies via surgical tools Or very rare metalic ones) in addition to a chance of body denying the organ and ant-denying drugs that put you in a generally weakened state. 

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

Excellent post OP but I fear DayZ will go from this

 

 

To this 

[SalamanderAnder (DayZ) 1747]

Excellent post OP but I fear DayZ will go from this

 

 

 

No offense, but I would simply like to point out that DayZ isn't like that... At all. We need more zombies for this, which is why I suggested it in my OP :P

 

 

BTW, maybe a mod could move this to the new suggestions area?

Edited April 26, 2014 by SalamanderAnder

[Katana67 2907]

Neat! This is one of those nice posts that I didn't read cause I was on my forum hiatus.

 

Very good, before they announced construction/barricading, I had this whole long essay typed up. This is awesome.

 

I have a few quibbles with the specifics of certain things, but the overall theme of making things into active "skills" (in the sense of, you as the player has to know how to do X) is awesome. I always found this to be lacking in DayZ. I mean, when you used to fix a car, you just clicked "Repair LF tire," and your character just accomplished it 100% of the time. It didn't require you to seat the tire. Didn't require you to tighten the lugs. Didn't require you to jack the vehicle.

 

This game needs more of this. DayZ has a ton of actions, not a lot of activities.

Edited April 26, 2014 by Katana67

[gibonez 3633]

Just becaue the game feels and reacts like you would expect it to does not magically make it a mil sim.

There is nothing wrong with mil sim elements in dayz. It only helps to create immersion and makes the world that more believable.