Loot: Mysterious and Unpredictable

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Understanding that loot spawn mechanics are currently placeholder and will be replaced soon, I want to make a couple general suggestions. The goal of these ideas is to keep players in the dark about loot and make it difficult for them to predict or manipulate loot to their advantage.

 

I think keeping loot mysterious and unpredictable will go a long way toward enhancing the experience of scavenging.

 

1) Servers should start up empty. 

 

Restarting a server should not be a path to populating the entire map with fresh, free loot. The temptation for server administrators to exploit this by restarting their server multiple times per day is simply too great and even players online for a restart gain the advantage of information they shouldn't have about the presence of loot.

 

This also applies to helicopter crash sites and any other random loot events. In the mod, it became common practice to start a server, check the common helo crashes sites, and restart once they were picked clean. It should require a certain amount of server uptime for these kinds of loot caches to start spawning in.

 

2) Loot should spawn randomly in small "pockets" or regions around the map, not everywhere all at once.

 

I might be over-simplifying or making too many assumptions, but when Dean says that loot spawning currently impacts server performance, I imagine he is trying to check every loot pile on the map to see whether it needs to spawn. Instead, if there existed a few dozen smaller "bubbles" of spawn activity, each with its own timer, not only would the burden on the server be far less, but it would be incredibly difficult for players to gain map-wide information about loot simply by observing a smaller area.

 

In other words, if I see that loot has reappeared in Berezino, it shouldn't tell me anything about whether there is fresh loot at the NEAF or in Dolina. Different areas of the map should spawn loot at different times so its always a mystery and predicting loot is difficult.

 

A crude "lootmap" here.

 

3) Loot spawns should not be tied to player behavior.

 

In the mod, loot only spawned when no players were in the area. Good idea in theory, but in practice this just developed into this weird "loot dance" that players did by looting an area, leaving, and then returning after a few minutes to find fresh loot there. It felt very "immersion breaking" in the sense that we were essentially controlling the appearance of loot with our movements.

 

Yes, it's a bit strange if a player is present for a spawn. Seeing items appear on the ground will be odd and disconcerting, but it's not really any less odd or off-putting to teach them that they have to "kind of be far away" for loot to appear. It's still goofy, just goofy at 100m.

 

4) Loot spawns should not be predictable.

 

Each loot region should have it's own timer, and each cycle, a new timer should be set with a high degree of variance. For example, a region could have a spawn time of anywhere from 120 to 300 minutes. When loot spawns, a new timer is randomly "rolled" to figure out when to next do a pass and repopulate the region.

 

This will keep players guessing. There won't be a pattern, and no reliable way for players to "figure out" the cycle and exploit it by moving into an area shortly before it's going to spawn loot.

 

This also allows some variation by loot value. Low-value residential areas could "pop" every 45 to 90 minutes, while higher value military or medical areas might only repopulate every 3-5 hours. Coastal cities could have longer timers than inland cities to give new players a more authentic wasteland experience.

 

5) Doors should spawn randomly open or closed.

 

I won't take credit for this; I saw it in another thread earlier and I'll find the link soon (I can't find this thread anymore, can anyone help?), but I think it belongs in this list. Door state should not be an accurate indicator of whether a building has been visited. Again, this is just communicating information to players that they shouldn't have. If you want to know what a building holds, you should have to go inside.

 

Edited to add ideas of random loot events.

 

To mix things up even more, consider a major expansion on what helicopter crashes did for the mod. The idea of "random loot events" could really be expanded on. In the mod, there were a limited number of helicopter spawn points. Once you had a vehicle and an excel spreadsheet, you could basically check for every known helicopter spawn in Chernarus within 60 minutes or so, and even loot the ones you find. Again, fun but predictable.

 

If instead there were hundreds of possible spawn points for various loot events, each with their own individual chance to spawn sometime after a server start, there would be almost no way to "finish" searching for these. Especially if they had low spawn chances and only appeared every 8-12 hours. You would be forced to continuously explore in the hopes of revealing one of these caches:

• Helicopter crashes, like in the mod.
• Humvee crashes. Like helicopters, smaller.
• Medical supply truck crashes. Tons of zombies, tons of medical supplies.
• Food/grocery supply truck crashes. Food, mostly rotten. Can openers.
• Bunker/Stash. Think the scene in The Road where they find the underground stash of canned goods. These could be very hard to spot stashes in the ground, possibly covered by foliage or tarps which conceal entrances to underground bunkers. Could have all sorts of supplies and residential weapons, left behind by the previous inhabitants (they might be there too). Also, a good place to set up an ambush. Here's what coming across one might look like.
• Train derailments (another idea I saw elsewhere, maybe on reddit. I'll find it).
• Overturned boats or washed up fishing boats. Maybe have to do some swimming?

Edited to mention the great thread here with a ton of ideas for random events.

Edited January 5, 2014 by ZedsDeadBaby

[elLoCo 154]

This is a nice idea, good sir!

 

I like the idea of random spawns at random times in random regions, it gives you the incentive to move which we all know is the motive for the walking simulator ^^.

But I would not suggest longer terms of respawn in starting locations, because if you die you will begin there and we all know how easy it is in the game to die. It already is troublesome enough if you start and you were the last in line and you run through the vicinity and there is already nothing left.

 

But in general i would agree with this idea. Especially if you think of the server load, This could rectify it.

 

As a side note:

Loot (and Zombies) shouldn't spawn right beside you. That really feels odd, but 50 meters of airline-distance could do the trick, because most stuff spawns inside houses and not in the fields.

[SageZ 13]

Yes, unpredictable loot should make it more fun to explore the map, BUT military areas should still have a higher chance for a weapon just so there would be hot points on the map.

[smoq2 221]

Very good idea. Sound plan for loot balancing and encouraging people to actually explore the map.

[libertine 351]

Not bad ideas.

[Rkelt 46]

Nice ideas mate...

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Here is an (obviously very rough) idea of how you could "lootmap" Chernarus, where each color represents a loot spawn frequency.

 

Could do something like:

 

red = 180 to 320 minutes.

orange = 160 to 240 minutes.

yellow = 90 to 120 minutes.

green = 45 to 90 minutes.

blue (default) = 30 to 60 minutes.

 

http://i.imgur.com/jlcfTgE.jpg

Edited January 4, 2014 by ZedsDeadBaby

[Mookzen 67]

Yes please sir dev make it so.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Edited to add ideas for random loot events similar to the helo crashes from the mod.

 

I think these provided some of the most fun in the mod, with the high number of armored zombies plus a huge potential to run into large squads of heavily geared players (not to mention the bevy of skull-busting firepower you could find nearby).

 

Just the kind of incentive everyone wants to get "geared players" off the coast and away from the beachsprouts and their precious Duracells.  :D 

Edited January 4, 2014 by ZedsDeadBaby

[jrtjmiller@bigpond.com 20]

Zedsdead, great idea mate.

 

One other idea to add to your cache list, a lone C-130 doing a random air drop.

Just one or two boxes under bright red and white silk dropping somewhere on the map. Containing med supplies food etc.

Maybe one every restart?

I think it would give the impression that "there is hope!!".

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Also:

 

Hardware supply truck. Matches, hammers, wrenches, nails (?), wood, wire, sand bags. Stuff for building basic structures (once they're in).

Edited January 4, 2014 by ZedsDeadBaby

[tinroofer 23]

Nice ideas mate, I really would love to see some loot variance :)

 

(Not sure about the doors being randomly opened or closed though, I imagine in any real scenario like dayz doors swinging wide open would be a good indicator of whether a building had been picked through or not.)

[DevilDog (DayZ) 455]

I like it a lot.

 

 

I don't agree with the bunker one though. As cool as that would be I don't like the idea of a bunker being there 1 day and the next it is gone.

 

How about a surfacing submarine? It would be a bit hard to spot and take a little time to swim out to, but would be awesome to explore and grab some decent 'rare' loot and get out of there. The rare loot would not even need to be awesome weapons, but a navy outfit, or sailor hat or something.

 

I would love to see random cargo ships 'floating' by. Swim out and board and check it out. They could even be from different countries and find loot accordingly. US would find 556 ammo for instance, or some rare American civilian firearm. Italian one could have a Benelli shotgun, only found on the boat. The French boat could have a FAMAS.

 

Things like that. This would also take care of the "X weapon should not be in Chernarus" because it only spawns on these boats from other parts of the world. Could do the same with plane crashes.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

I like it a lot.

 

I don't agree with the bunker one though. As cool as that would be I don't like the idea of a bunker being there 1 day and the next it is gone.

 

I thought the same thing, but then, okay? It doesn't make any sense for a crashed blackhawk to randomly disappear either; or for a wrecked truck or Humvee to vanish, or for dead bodies to disintegrate, or (frankly) for loot to re-appear at all. Is the distinction then that surface objects are permitted to behave as if they exist in a transient, temporarily present dimension while things terrestrial and subterranean must adhere to a "one universe" rule, for some reason? I talked myself out of the worry.

 

Yes, it feels strange for there to be a stationary object in one place one day and potentially a different place the next, or not in the same place on a different server, but I don't know. I think if you can suspend disbelief long enough to buy that all of these other things are apparently transient, then it's not so hard maybe to accept a hole in the ground might move?

 

One thing I imagined is that dug-out, man-made bunkers might make more sense than rock and steel. At least then you could tell yourself that the ones which exist were dug recently, while ones that disappear collapse in upon themselves and are kind of "re-absorbed" by the surrounding earth and plant material.

Edited January 4, 2014 by ZedsDeadBaby

[DemonGroover 8836]

Very good.

 

I am not a fan of specific loot types in particular areas, though i suppose the best place to look for a gun would be a military installation.  I would rather there be a chance to find anything anywhere, even if the % was very low - for example why wouldn't you be able to find an M4 in a random house - perhaps a soldier put the empty gun on a table and was then killed..who knows

 

As for random events - i like the idea of finding random things like truck crashes, train crashes etc even if the truck that crashed was full of soda cans.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Very good.

 

I am not a fan of specific loot types in particular areas, though i suppose the best place to look for a gun would be a military installation.  I would rather there be a chance to find anything anywhere...

 

I like this, too. I think Dean experimented with something like this in the mod, because every once in awhile you would find an oddly powerful item in an otherwise mundane place, so I think there were some sneaky 1-2% spawn rates hanging around at times, here and there, which made it seem more exciting but at the same time it was so ridiculously rare that it almost didn't matter. Might as well have been a myth.

 

I think this feeling will improve as the item list grows; there will simply be so many items available in the game that it will naturally feel more varied because finding any one thing will become more difficult as the item list grows.

 

That said, it's also true that it would be nice if "spawn points" weren't so uniform. DayZDB is an amazing resource and a great site, but the fact that they can map the entirety of Chernarus down to which item types will appear where is kind of lame. If spawn piles were instead internally variant - sometimes military, sometimes residential, sometimes commercial, etc. and the balance just kind of shifted depending on the type of building the game might be more exciting.

 

Then again, they have to be careful. Part of the point of concentrating military loot in very specific places is that it draws people together and causes interactions, and that's something you have to be sure you're encouraging when you only have 40 players in 144km^2.. That's a scary average of only one player every 3.6km².

[Space Milk 195]

Would cause extreme lagginess after everything spawns, or if they randomly spawn, some of them would not spawn.

I see why you propose this but it is a terrible idea from a player's/coders standpoint.

[McBonkhead 83]

Have my beans!  :beans:

 

This would be a great way to curb server hopping for better loot. Make everywhere, potentially, like winning the loot lottery!  :lol:

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Would cause extreme lagginess after everything spawns, or if they randomly spawn, some of them would not spawn.

I see why you propose this but it is a terrible idea from a player's/coders standpoint.

 

With respect, that really doesn't make any sense. Loot already exists all over the map. By making it spawn less frequently, these suggestions would actually reduce the point-in-time load on the server and decrease, rather than increase lag.

 

Lag is primarily caused by two things: a. the server being really busy with heavy processing (everyone lags) or b. your personal network bandwidth being over-taxed, making it difficult to stay in synch with the server (just you lag). 

 

Once loot is spawned, the server doesn't have a lot of processing to do. Most of the work would come from checking each spawn location to see if loot needs to appear. The network bubble implementation also ensures that loot which is far away from you doesn't have any direct impact on your personal network bandwidth. If you're in Chernogorsk, your client doens't know anything about the loot in Berezino.

 

Further, if you truly believe the game is incapable of supporting things like this without becoming "extremely laggy" then what do you expect will happen once other features are added like vehicles, player-built structures, animals, traps, etc. not to mention hundreds of additional zombies?

 

I get the sense that you're basically just trying to be contrary because we had it out in that other thread about PvP but, trust me, you're barking up the wrong tree here.

[TheCarn 2]

Yes, unpredictable loot should make it more fun to explore the map, BUT military areas should still have a higher chance for a weapon just so there would be hot points on the map.

Agreed but dont just limit that to the major military hot spots like Balota and NW Airfield, there are plenty of smaller military outposts scattered around the map that could very well hold some awesome gear.  Gotta give everyone a fighting chance... or bandits will control the good stuff.

[TheCarn 2]

Very good.

 

I am not a fan of specific loot types in particular areas, though i suppose the best place to look for a gun would be a military installation.  I would rather there be a chance to find anything anywhere, even if the % was very low - for example why wouldn't you be able to find an M4 in a random house - perhaps a soldier put the empty gun on a table and was then killed..who knows

 

As for random events - i like the idea of finding random things like truck crashes, train crashes etc even if the truck that crashed was full of soda cans.

Agreed you should be able to look under a bed or in a closet and find a gun of some sort maybe a shotgun in a cabnet in a shed or a hunting rifle mounted on a wall (that would be cool), its a zombie apocolypse after all, everyone would have taken up arms at a some point. But then again the game inst based in the US so realisticly there wouldnt be guns scattered around in every house or under a bar counter. If the game was based in the US you would find guns everywhere, probably even in the streets.

[McBonkhead 83]

If the game was based in the US you would find guns everywhere, probably even in the streets.

Yup, 90 guns for 100 people in the States. 1# in the world.

 

I would LOVE to be able to hide in a closet. :D

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Weekly Friday bump (17 JAN).

[Felony Inhibitor 59]

I just posted something similar to this as far as the loot... Not completely similar but similar... Search should have been my friend I guess!!!

Anyways, I like this idea a lot.  :thumbsup:

[Jimbo_au 18]

I like this idea/s but would want another layer added.

 

Right now  we all know military bases hold the good stuff, and that would be true in real life, but how about a year into the outbreak these places would be looted dry and the weapons would disburse into out lying area's, so at the start of a server they would be in and around military bases but in a weeks time could be lying around villages near by in houses and then even further. This would survive server downs and restarts like tents, (a restart would not put the weapons back in base but refresh the drops) I also think a server restart option should be added to give the admin power to reset the drops back to base because after long enough you would have little chance in finding the really good weapons or cap it at a certain stage.

 

This should add progression to drops and give people a chance to have good fights in bases and villages etc etc if done right it could be great, it also gives people who only play 30 mins a day to get something good without getting shot or server hopping because there scared to go into a base. the speed it disburses could also be based on deaths on server so as more people die the loot spreads out more from its starting location.

 

Just my 2 cents, and of course devs would have to balance.

Edited January 17, 2014 by Jimbo_au