Loot Searching: More locations, noise, teamwork and maybe getting axed in the head..

[Monkfish (DayZ) 339]

I bought DayZ SA a few days ago and have put in about 14hrs of gameplay since then. I've spent most of that time wandering about looking for loot and, whilst searching villages for some weapons last night, had an idea for the loot and how we go about searching for it.

 

Currently, loot found in buildings is either on the floor or on top of a piece of furniture. Where loot is present, it's almost immediately obvious what it is (unless it's glitched through the floor :lol:) and it doesn't take a lot of time to scan over a room and see if there's anything of interest once you know what the good stuff looks like. Additionally, none of the furniture featured is interactive (that I'm aware of) and I think it would be great if loot could be found inside some items of furniture. This would; 1) Require people invest some more time in searching for items, 2) Add some realism to loot locations and searching for useful items, 3) Add some new mechanics into the game that would make people think a little more about their actions. Here's how I envisage it working...

 

Locations and Types

- Cupboards, wardrobes, side tables, fridges, lockers, boxes/containers and any other items of furniture that you would reasonably expect to find items could contain loot

- Loot would still exist on tables and randomly scattered about on the floor. After all, during a zombie apocalypse, people would panic and drop items whilst trying to escape (or whatever they would do during an apocalypse)

- Loot could be relevant to the bit of furniture it is found in. i.e Fridges/kitchen cupboards might contain food/water, bedside tables could contain a loaded handgun (rare, but possible) or painkillers, wardrobes could contain items of clothing/backpacks etc. I'm sure you get the idea. However, the loot found could also be randomised slightly so there's an outside chance of finding something interesting where you might not expect it to encourage thorough searching.

 

Mechanics of Searching

Here's where the suggestion gets nice and interesting. Searching for loot would take a little more time and, crucially, make noise. Whether the noise is due to searching (along the lines of State of Decay) or just the sound of things being opened/moved is up for debate, but searching inside something should make some sort of noise that would be audible if you're in close proximity (10-15m or so I guess). Want to rummage through that side table and see if there's a gun in it? Sure, but you're going to make some noise whilst doing so and may attract unwanted attention, be it from zombies or other players. If you're busy with your nose buried in a box, you might not notice that Bandit sneaking in behind you with plans to shove an axe through the back of your head.

 

This will add some interesting elements to searching and could bring about more cooperation between players as having a lookout whilst searching makes survival sense. I have no idea whether the engine would support this or not but I guess that's for the Devs to investigate/make work if the community likes the idea.

 

So, without further ado, GO GO GADGET COMMENTS!

 

Note: I bashed the search a little to see if this has already been suggested but I couldn't see anything.

[BirneKran 5]

I like the idea, man. I think, something that would also fit to this idea would be more zombies in cities and villages. Looting in big places should be a very dangerous thing.

Edited January 8, 2014 by BirneKran

[Monkfish (DayZ) 339]

Yes, certainly. Similarly with the airbases, or anywhere high value loot is to be found, a higher number of zeds (possibly armoured army in the case of military installations) should be at these locations to make them exceptionally dangerous places to be; Moreso than they are now. With great risk comes great reward and fumbling your way through lockers looking for that sweet <insert favourite bangstick> should be accompanied by a rather high chance of agroing a hoard of zeds.

[Deadly Walker 19]

Love this idea!!! makes sense and would add to the emersion of the game u got my baeans man :D

[doublebrain 255]

The future "feature" of doors making sound would be the first step towards loot=noice. :) And I support the idea of more sounds to everything, Dean alreay said he wants much and many more sounds because the sound is one very important thing for atmosphere and affects gameplay quite much.