No starter weapon removes survival instinct, and respect for zeds

[breetai3 0]

I've been playing for over a month and a half, and the new beta finally prompted me to create a forum account to discuss the starter weapon change.

As a disclaimer, I do not find survival difficult. I finally died after two weeks yesterday simply because I spawned right behind a guy in a random house...what luck for him, enjoy your free MP5SD. I think the game actually needs to be a bit more difficult, but spawning with no weapon is not the answer to that.

I can only tell you from my experience, that by spawning with no weapon last night it threw my respect for living out of the window. With nothing, I could care less if I died. I also had no respect for the lethality of zeds...nothing to protect? who cares? Never in the hours and hours of playing had that thought ever crossed my mind previously.

I spawned near Kamenka, so I just ran to the airfield and without care for bandits or zeds, aggroed the entire base and ran them around in circles while searching for weapons. Inside the hangars, up the radio tower, I imagined the Benny Hill music playing in the background as 20 zombies chased after me. Oooo...an AK in the radio tower....grabbed it, ran down the ladder and off into the woods for 5 minutes until they were all gone.

That made it a video game, not realistic survival. It was silly, and it was ridiculous. The zombie apocalypse already HAPPENED. If you are a still a survivor in the zombie wasteland, it's because you are able to defend yourself. At least start us with a melee weapon. Who wouldn't have a blunt instrument in the zombie apocalypse?

I think starting with no weapons creates the exact opposite conditions that were intended with the game. It created an experience I never want to have again...where survival meant jack. I love this game because it's just about the only one that is supposed to care about living.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Who wouldn't have a blunt instrument in the zombie apocalypse?

Someone who just woke up on the beach with no idea how they got there.

[Noodle! 0]

You could do the exact same thing with a makarov.

For me, and my friends, I felt the opposite way. Crawling and sneaking into cherno and elektro to try to get some food and initial supply is more tense than ever.

[armadayz 0]

Who wouldn't have a blunt instrument in the zombie apocalypse?

Someone who just woke up on the beach with no idea how they got there.

Do you think they would have a bandage and painkillers? idiot.

[i wub pugs 16]

This is why some zeds should be faster than people, can't just run away from all of them.

You would still be able to run inside though, but with no gun or other weapon...

[djkling 5]

I am so mixed on this. I would LIKE to have a weapon at start, but a gun? why not start with a crobar or even consider just a wooden board? Could be weak but able to address a single zed issue.

[breetai3 0]

That's all that is needed. A bat. A board. Anything that would prevent me from not caring whether I live or die.

And yeah as was already mentioned, you can't make the "you wake up in the middle of nowhere so why have anything" argument when I have painkillers and a bandage.

[justwrath 23]

I've been playing for over a month and a half' date=' and the new beta finally prompted me to create a forum account to discuss the starter weapon change.

As a disclaimer, I do not find survival difficult. I finally died after two weeks yesterday simply because I spawned right behind a guy in a random house...what luck for him, enjoy your free MP5SD. I think the game actually needs to be a bit more difficult, but spawning with no weapon is not the answer to that.

I can only tell you from my experience, that by spawning with no weapon last night it threw my respect for living out of the window. With nothing, I could care less if I died. I also had no respect for the lethality of zeds...nothing to protect? who cares? Never in the hours and hours of playing had that thought ever crossed my mind previously.

I spawned near Kamenka, so I just ran to the airfield and without care for bandits or zeds, aggroed the entire base and ran them around in circles while searching for weapons. Inside the hangars, up the radio tower, I imagined the Benny Hill music playing in the background as 20 zombies chased after me. Oooo...an AK in the radio tower....grabbed it, ran down the ladder and off into the woods for 5 minutes until they were all gone.

That made it a video game, not realistic survival. It was silly, and it was ridiculous. The zombie apocalypse already HAPPENED. If you are a still a survivor in the zombie wasteland, it's because you are able to defend yourself. At least start us with a melee weapon. Who wouldn't have a blunt instrument in the zombie apocalypse?

I think starting with no weapons creates the exact opposite conditions that were intended with the game. It created an experience I never want to have again...where survival meant jack. I love this game because it's just about the only one that is supposed to care about living.

[/quote']

your logic is flawed. with starter kit you don't care about living no matter what it has in it, because you will have it again after you respawn. I didn't care about dying on a fresh character before, and i don't now.

[breetai3 0]

That is not true. With the starter kit you had everything you need to start heading wherever you wanted to go and assume you'll start gathering things along the way. You had enough to survive travel to another area. There was no instant requirement of gear gathering that makes you do silly things like aggro entire areas because it's simply easier that way to get stuff quicker than traditional sneak and gather. It's turned the coastline into the standard FPS style video game where living doesn't matter.

I'm not even asking for the traditional starter kit. Just give me a blunt object. Heck take the painkillers in trade. ;)

[jtaskew91 0]

What about having random spawning weapons? Obviously they will be garbage weapons, mainly blunt weapons and if you decide to give them a firearm make it have only one or two mags.

Could also try making initial loot near spawns easier to get to, I mean only like a can of beans or soda or two nothing serious. At least if someone who feels the satisfaction of finding something may be more cautious rather that just randomly running around not caring until they find a weapon.

Also I do like the idea of not starting with any firearms. People could purposely charge into elektro for instance trying to kill a heavily armed bandit/survivor. What does the new player have to care about, he can just keep trying to respawn till he/she spawns near eletro again.

[LiptonTea 0]

inb4 rockets decides you wake up with nothing at all, keep crying and you'll see.

[Rinner23 5]

Ihink starting with no weapons creates the exact opposite conditions that were intended with the game.

What is "intended" with the game is exactly what Rocket decides to do next to piss us all off, not what YOU THINK IS INTENDED WITH THE GAME.

Why does no one see this?

[Remix (DayZ) 14]

Are you serious? How would starting with a gun every life make you care about your life?

[JohnSmith (DayZ) 1]

But I guess he's right to some point.

I did the same with my last respawn... just ran off like road runner checking places I know usually have good loot. With a huge train of Zs behind me.

Got decent equipment pretty fast, lost them Zs all easy in town running through and around a few houses. Not fired a single shot.

Finally started to move a lot more carefully up north - and was sniped climbing a deerstand near Pogorevka by some doofus apparently camping there. Shit happens.

Still, something's off with the latest patch. Just doesnt... feel right. Cant say. Something's missing.

[breetai3 0]

Fine, then replace "intended" with "part of the reason why 200,000 people play this game."

How about start us with nothing and litter the coast with 2x4s? =)

---

Are you serious? How would starting with a gun every life make you care about your life?

because it removes the immediacy of instant gear requirements that make a player do silly, unrealistic things to get it.

[Perrywinkle 6]

I found what OP said to be true... After a month of playing stealth/survive, I just ended up running through as many two entrance buildings as I could until I found a weapon. If I died, I didn't care. It takes less time to run and pray than stealth through the starting areas.

It also makes no sense to slowly crawl to a building that, more than likely, has no loot in it. Thanks loot hoppers!

[JimiEZ (DayZ) 0]

Like others have said, you could behave exactly the same when you still had a Makarov when you spawned, as you'd just get the Makarov again if you died. In that respect nothing has changed. However, now that you spawn with less stuff, you're also less of a target for other players because you pose no threat and you have nothing of value to kill over, so overall there's probably less killing of FNGs except for pure griefing purposes. Yeah, it sucks if someone does kill you just to grief you, but like you just said yourself: What does it matter? You'll just spawn again at another location with nothing of value lost.

[Champloo (DayZ) 5]

Lol, the only "tense" thing about looking for a weapon is the one second you take to use the disconnect nuke to get rid of the zombie train trailing you. Then just farming the deer stands of balota until you're lucky enough to get a gun spawn. But I guess that's fun and realistic to some people.

Also, why would you ever use melee against zombies? You're just going to bleed out to death unless the sneaking is improved and zombies stop acting like superheros and you can OHK them or something with them. Otherwise you're just going to be watching the respawn screen all the time.

Spawning without a gun just makes the game tedious. I never sneak to get my first gun because that takes more than ten times as long when I can just derp my way into the tree stands (also another problem is people only want to start near balota or cherno). It's pointless, tedious, and doesn't necessarily reflect the desire of the community (tell me more about how the forums automatically represent the opinion of everyone who plays DayZ).

[breetai3 0]

Like others have said' date=' you could behave exactly the same when you still had a Makarov when you spawned, as you'd just get the Makarov again if you died. In that respect nothing has changed. However, now that you spawn with less stuff, you're also less of a target for other players because you pose no threat and you have nothing of value to kill over, so overall there's probably less killing of FNGs except for pure griefing purposes. Yeah, it sucks if someone does kill you just to grief you, but like you just said yourself: What does it matter? You'll just spawn again at another location with nothing of value lost.

[/quote']

If I start with a weapon, I can immediately head inland because I have the one tool necessary to sneak/stealth to get everything I need equipment wise. Maybe it even makes it more exciting, as I have no food/water now, but I have a weapon so a chance to get some but it's more difficult. I'm actually all for starting with no food/water.

But starting with no way to defend myself I immediately make getting a weapon a priority on the coast and do silly things to get one because I know that dying will just put me in the exact same situation. Like I said before the coast spawn becomes a standard FPS experience, but starting with the ability to defend yourself becomes survival.

[JohnSmith (DayZ) 1]

Actually no.

If I'd had a gun from the start I probably would have moved in the usual careful and slow way from the start - and possibly steal your gun/equipment on the way, too, if you'd happen to spawn in the same area. :angel:

And I could have never made it that far up north so fast...

Not saying that I really want/need a starting gun back - or even any kind of weapon. But impersonating road runner shouldn't really be an acceptable alternative either.

[thealgerian 2]

First of, I think the OP is right, I too don't really give a crap anymore until I find a weapon, thing I would never have done back when we had the makarov.

Still, bringing it back wouldn't be a great idea.

I'm thinking, another pistol, any pistol that wouldn't be in the game yet, with like 1 mag left, and no ammo for it to be found anywhere in the map.

[breetai3 0]

I'm thinking' date=' another pistol, any pistol that wouldn't be in the game yet, with like 1 mag left, and no ammo for it to be found anywhere in the map.

[/quote']

I like that idea. I'm not sure it would fix the problem, but it might help a bit.

[orb917@hotmail.com 117]

if you choose to play that way it is on you op, not necessarily the developers. i feel the exact same way as i did with makarov as part of my starting kit, and play pretty much the same (minus my approaches to dealing with zombies while weaponless). i play to try to survive for as long as possible, every life. only exception is that i'm a lot more likely to approach random weaponless people near the start to group up with them. before i avoided anyone i didn't know like the plague.

i'm not opposed to starting with a melee weapon though.

[Remix (DayZ) 14]

How does a gun help you anyway? Honestly, what will you do with it once you have it? You're still going to loot towns, still aggravate zombies and still not care about your life.

Having no gun actually makes your life worth something when you do actually find some weapons...

[SilverWeed 0]

You can usually find a hatchet in little crap buildings without having to aggro infected. It's finding morphine that makes it really hard to avoid the hospitals in the coastal cities after spawning, morphine is a must these days with the random leg breaks from infected.