My suggestions after a week

[Magisk 2]

First of all what a sick sick game, I love it!

Was originally coming here to donate, but as Ive been told this mod is about to become a "real" game on arma3, so dunno if donations is needed. (let me know) :)

In the meanwhile ill just give my input, hopefully its of some value.

1. Zombies

The way they behave makes them more of an annoyance than they should be I personally feel. Rarely do I find myself in a spot where shooting one is the best option, unless they are in my face :O)

This then makes them more of an obstacle type of thing and not an element that feels sowed into the experience in a way.. To me its a shame because killing zombies are normally fun.

(could be they are made this way due to limitations in the arma2 engine, and in arma3 a totally different behavior is planned?)

Anyways how I think they should behave is like this:

A. Zombies should be slow

-Players will be encouraged to more often kill zombies as it will be easier to move away before zombies arrive to the origin of the sound, there will still many reasons enough to be selective about doing so.

B. Zombies should be hard to kill

-Shots towards legs and arms should not kill, but simply change their movement animation

-Shots towards chest and stomach should primarily decrease/knockback speed and take a little life

-Shots towards head should be 10x more effective then anything else

C. Since difficulty will decrease with the speed reduction zombies could have "cent" allowing them to pick up on paths walked by players

-It would cause a constant pressure, since the player has to be aware of the threat of a zombie sneaking up

-Zones like deep into a Forrest which now feels safe would have a element of paranoia as well

-There could be a game mechanic to "cover tracks"

-The tracks could automatically fade after a while

- (additionally some rare thermal player-item could also view fresh tracks due to the warmth they leave)

- (this last point could be implemented into animal hunting as well maybe)

D. Zombies could have pathing which allows them to:

- Break a window and crawl into it

- If stalking a player inside a house zombies could be distracted by food and stop to consume it. (could create a mechanic where dropping food would be a tactic to stall zombies maybe)

- Some buildings could be old and have timber that allows zombies to slowly break through a wall. (imagine the terror) :)

- Zombies could sometimes spawn on roadsides as well.

- Spawn system made so that zombies must spawn outside of view distance

- Zombies could have many different "pre aggro behaviors", such as sitting in a group, trying to break into something, aggressive towards other zombies, and so on

- Zombies could interact with weather, for example have problems slipping when its raining, problems walking straight when its windy, and so on.

2. Player vs player interaction

To me this is the core of DayZ, the whole social aspect of trying to survive in a chaotic situation not knowing who to trust and constantly having to be alert. However, I think there has to be some system that slightly reduces a players willingness to kill another player.

A. A better system to indicate friendliness, my suggestion: "Blood effect"

- Players who have murdered other players are covered in some blood, this blood causes them to increase zombie attraction a little and acts as a visible warning to other players.

- Blood can be washed off in a lake or fade away in some time maybe

- The red blood color also makes the bandit easier to see

B. Certain chemicals can be found and used to poison food/drinks

- This could be very rare, but still would act as a little deterrent as eating something you have stolen is not 100% safe.

- The item could be marked for the player who has poisoned it, but for the player picking it up it looks authentic

- This could also create certain strategies such as leaving poisoned food somewhere as a trap

- Alternatively there could be made 2 food groups, 1canned=100% safe and 1packed=not 100% safe

- Just knowing that the guy who killed you likely will be poisoned makes it feel a little better :)

- A player who is poisoned needs a anti-poison, which is very rare. If not used then player could lose blood slowly and need to 5x increase food and water consumption to stall the effect or something.

3.Player interaction and items

- Movement speed could maybe not be effected by the weapon currently holding but rather the weight of all the gear.

- A rare "radio item" enabling the player to tune into other teams communicating

- Various ways to create traps for animals and other players.

- Fishing and bird hunting

- Setting buildings on fire,

4. Server options

-Players can not start exactly where they logged of but in some distance away without any other players or loot

-Alternatively players can join where they have set up camp (requies a tent or vehicle)

-Players can "team start" enabling two or more friends to spawn in the same location

[duddbudda 33]

these are infected humans not the revenant dead

they are apex predators dependant on normal bodily functions to survive

blood already shows up on players, it indicates that they have been shot

heartbeats are audible on bad players, they indicate that a player is bad

if you want to indicate friendliness use the ' key to salute or plug your headset in and direct chat

poisoned meats, making your corpse a booby trap with a grenade and other simple revenge options are little masturbatory gifts for players who failed to take sufficient steps to protect themselves, they are unwarranted and unnecessary

if a player gets murdered so often they glady waste a valuable slot on poisoned meat, y'know what, let them: it just makes them easier to kill and all I have to do is make sure I cook my meat myself, it's not as if animals are scarce

radios are WIP

encumberance may be part of Rocket's rumoured inventory overhaul

traps are a no-no imo - makes campers too secure - a vital part of my teams raids is sweeping for snipers, and if they've got a beartrap or trip-wired grenade covering their back it makes things too easy for them

buildings can be destroyed with sufficient firepower, IEDs will probably be an inevitable part of the game. as for burning down the house, I don't know, ARMA struggles enough with a convincing 'my car is on fire' mechanic

players not respawning where they logged out is insane - I always log off in tree cover and I'm not about to be respawned in the middle of a field because someone happens to be in the area

spawning at a camp = fine, if that's where you were when you logged out, too much potential for abuse by cowardly DCers and makes it far too easy to ruin a whole clan - find their tents and wait

respawning at a camp = no, the guy who has friends in the camp is dead the new character has to meet them again (even if the player is friends on TS)

team start = HELLS NO pussy ass fools want this because no guns is hard

DAMN STRAIGHT it's hard, it's meant to be hard shiieeeet crackers ain't got no stones

take that fool respawn button out and prevent players from respawning thirty times till they all land in Novy exploiting motherfuckers make me sick

[chaveezy 19]

You've got some great ideas about the zombies interactivity, slower, tracking skills and the ability to shoot their legs out to make them change movement.

Killing zombies is never a good idea, not just because it alerts other zombies but because it alerts other players. There is absolutely NO trusting anyone, especially in the Northern towns because you've worked so hard to get there, a lot of times they kill you just so you aren't a threat, not because they want your gear or anything, of course you will still check and raid for supplies and gear.

This is really a difficult predicament because in all honesty, there is probably good players out there, I'm sure of it, but there is just no way to get close enough to give a signal without them taking the first shot. So there-in lies another issue, if you kill several people who have engaged you and it pins you as a bandit, that makes it kind of hard to make friends if you even attempted to do so.. I think the current heart beat is good enough, direct communication is the only option.

Team communication can be used VIA Skype or TeamTalk, so there really isn't a need to spend time on this.

I think traps would be an excellent idea, trip wires or other trapping systems would give an advantage but could be spotted with glare or color if moving carefully. This isn't something that would be anywhere close to my priority list though. Fixing the zombies would be #1

Good ideas though, very creative ;)

[Magisk 2]

Reply to chaveezy

Thanks for reading it all and for your input.

I totally agree with you, many players probably kill other players just to avoid a risky situation.

It all comes down to probability really, playing friendly will get you killed at some point regardless of how careful you are.

I haven't actually noticed the heartbeat thing, maybe its turned off in the beta.. But yeah I can see it being not an optimal solution as long-living characters are destined to have been in several shootouts with "bandits" that have no kills yet.

I cant actually think of any way to solve this either :(

Or maybe actually a way would be to count times a player did not kill another player..

maybe like:

-A mechanic to register friendly and nonfriendly "player encounters"

-A player with 0 "player encounters" would be seen as hostile

being close to another player and not being aggressive or having a friendly player in sight and not being aggressive could both be counted maybe.

And in cases where this would cause a "0 encounter player" to be wrongfully killed it would be most likely on a short-lived character anyways. And I guess in a zombie apocalyptic environment you're guilty until proven innocent? :)

Not sure about this tho, could be some huge downside to a system like this probably.

About the traps, I think the glare thing would be great. It would sortof give the traps a negative counter, where if an observant player notices it the tables could be turned :)