Respawning Loot Prototype

[mgc 92]

What is the intended purpose of this mechanic?

[Etherious 907]

There testing loot respawning in quadrants and also testing why a majority of loot wasn't spawning.

Edited April 3, 2014 by DJ SGTHornet

[ekd 13]

Eventually prevents serverhopping and there is a reward for going through an already looted location.
Possibly encourages "loot farming", i.e. walking in a large circle and cyling the spawned loot, but that is a big improvement over the current system, and the best system that I can think of.

[mgc 92]

Eventually prevents serverhopping and there is a reward for going through an already looted location.

Possibly encourages "loot farming", i.e. walking in a large circle and cyling the spawned loot, but that is a big improvement over the current system, and the best system that I can think of.

""Eventually prevents serverhopping""

How?

[Publik 404]

System is hamfisted and inelegant. It's also not very transparent to the player.

• What constitutes an "empty" quadrant?
  • Do useless items like wrenches count towards a quadrant being "empty"?
  • Do players need to pick up these useless items to make the quadrant empty?
  • Do players dropping items cause a quadrant to not be empty?
• How quickly do quadrants restock?
  • If I pick up the last item in a quadrant, do all of the buildings around me suddenly spawn loot?
• Are there any cities bisected by a quadrant line?
• Does loot still respawn on server restart anyways?

All I can see this system doing (if the last bullet isn't true) is that the servers will start with a bunch of loot, people will quickly snatch up all of the food, weapons, and ammo, and since the system doesn't sound like it'll restock very often people will just end up with an empty server. New players won't find food and will starve, and if they don't they're not going to find any weapons or ammo. Even more KoS since everyone will be starving and/or that guy over there might have some gear!

 

If the last bullet is true, nothing will change at all. 

 

I've proposed a better solution in my signature. The gist of it is that the server keeps a tally of the number of items held in that server and held by the players of that server. Let's assume a server has 19,000 unique items (250 of which are carried by players) and it wants to keep a stock of 20,000. Every X-Y minutes, the server decides to restock loot on the server. In this case, it would want to spawn 1,000 new items to bring the total back up. The server would then pick 1,000 loot locations. If a picked location is

• Filled
• Has a player within X00 meters

throw that location away and pick a new one. This has a sanity count of 1,000 to 2,000 tries before it gives up and uses the current list of acceptable locations.

 

This system would

• Spawn loot away from players
• Not spawn loot near players (loot cycling)
• Lower the loot in high-traffic areas (airfields, etc, makes server hopping less profitable, drives people away from the kill zones)
• Implants the idea that "there's always loot over that hill, or in that little farmhouse, or in that town we haven't checked in a few hours" (promotes exploration)

Edited April 3, 2014 by Publik

[ekd 13]

""Eventually prevents serverhopping""

How?

 

Right now loot spawns when the server resets.

That means people just have to look at the servertime and/or the number of players, and join a server near a high loot site.

With autonomous-respawning loot (at least that's how I image the system will be) the loot would disappear if people join the server too close to it.

[Etherious 907]

System is hamfisted and inelegant. It's also not very transparent to the player.

• What constitutes an "empty" quadrant?
  • Do useless items like wrenches count towards a quadrant being "empty"?
  • Do players need to pick up these useless items to make the quadrant empty?
  • Do players dropping items cause a quadrant to not be empty?
• How quickly do quadrants restock?
  • If I pick up the last item in a quadrant, do all of the buildings around me suddenly spawn loot?
• Does loot still respawn on server restart anyways?

All I can see this system doing (if the last bullet isn't true) is that the servers will start with a bunch of loot, people will quickly snatch up all of the food, weapons, and ammo, and since the system doesn't sound like it'll restock very often people will just end up with an empty server. New players won't find food and will starve, and if they don't they're not going to find any weapons or ammo. Even more KoS since everyone will be starving and/or that guy over there might have some gear!

 

If the last bullet is true, nothing will change at all. 

A server restarting will always have new loot spawning, and also I did not think about the whole wrench thing....that's quite interesting note. + Beans

[Publik 404]

A server restarting will always have new loot spawning, and also I did not think about the whole wrench thing....that's quite interesting note. + Beans

Then it won't change anything. There was a server I was on the other night with a MOTD asking for donations to a yahoo account to "keep the loot respawning".

[Etherious 907]

Then it won't change anything. There was a server I was on the other night with a MOTD asking for donations to a yahoo account to "keep the loot respawning".

That's stupid. xD

[mgc 92]

Right now loot spawns when the server resets.

That means people just have to look at the servertime and/or the number of players, and join a server near a high loot site.

With autonomous-respawning loot (at least that's how I image the system will be) the loot would disappear if people join the server too close to it.

""the loot would disappear if people join the server too close to it.""

How large an area would be affected?

[ekd 13]

""the loot would disappear if people join the server too close to it.""

How large an area would be affected?

 

I'm speculating here, so I have no clue.

I suppose the devs would have to find out by testing and feedback from the community.

[mgc 92]

I'm speculating here, so I have no clue.

I suppose the devs would have to find out by testing and feedback from the community.

I think removing loot would have to happen within at least 1000m to get any effect. This would have the disastrous side effect of wiping clean an entire city should someone be troll enough to spawn there.

[Judopunch 523]

 

System is hamfisted and inelegant. It's also not very transparent to the player.

• What constitutes an "empty" quadrant?
  • Do useless items like wrenches count towards a quadrant being "empty"?
  • Do players need to pick up these useless items to make the quadrant empty?
  • Do players dropping items cause a quadrant to not be empty?
• How quickly do quadrants restock?
  • If I pick up the last item in a quadrant, do all of the buildings around me suddenly spawn loot?
• Are there any cities bisected by a quadrant line?
• Does loot still respawn on server restart anyways?

All I can see this system doing (if the last bullet isn't true) is that the servers will start with a bunch of loot, people will quickly snatch up all of the food, weapons, and ammo, and since the system doesn't sound like it'll restock very often people will just end up with an empty server. New players won't find food and will starve, and if they don't they're not going to find any weapons or ammo. Even more KoS since everyone will be starving and/or that guy over there might have some gear!

 

If the last bullet is true, nothing will change at all. 

 

I've proposed a better solution in my signature. The gist of it is that the server keeps a tally of the number of items held in that server and held by the players of that server. Let's assume a server has 19,000 unique items (250 of which are carried by players) and it wants to keep a stock of 20,000. Every X-Y minutes, the server decides to restock loot on the server. In this case, it would want to spawn 1,000 new items to bring the total back up. The server would then pick 1,000 loot locations. If a picked location is

• Filled
• Has a player within X00 meters

throw that location away and pick a new one. This has a sanity count of 1,000 to 2,000 tries before it gives up and uses the current list of acceptable locations.

 

This system would

• Spawn loot away from players
• Not spawn loot near players (loot cycling)
• Lower the loot in high-traffic areas (airfields, etc, makes server hopping less profitable, drives people away from the kill zones)
• Implants the idea that "there's always loot over that hill, or in that little farmhouse, or in that town we haven't checked in a few hours" (promotes exploration)

 

Most of your obvious concerns will obviously be addressed when they balance the system. 

 

You almost have a great post, but like Faux newz you try to make things seem worse than they are with comments like "

• Do useless items like wrenches count towards a quadrant being "empty"?

   

   

It doesnt take into consideration that wrenches will be very useful for fixing vehicles and building things.

 

 

You fail to make the logic jump than when loot and zombies respawn server restarts wont need to happen very often. Let alone must not have read one of the 100 threads about how the hives will have a loot economy and persistant storage and all of the discussion already avalable.

 

"System is hamfisted and inelegant. It's also not very transparent to the player."

 

 

Where do you even get off making a statement like that? You obviously dont know anything about what they are doing, what they are doing next, and what the end goal for the system is. Please stop posting this shit. You are stating things as if they are facts when you havent the most basic grasp of what your talking about.

Edited April 4, 2014 by Judopunch

[mgc 92]

It doesnt take into consideration that wrenches will be very useful for fixing vehicles and building things.

 

server restarts wont need to happen very often.

*snipped*

Still the question is legit and more information would be much appreciated.

 

Server restarts are irrelevant as there will be loot respawning everywhere. They will just hop to a quadrant with loot. Granted, they may have to hop a few servers before they find one. Once vehicles are introduced, it might be more appealing to drive to the next quadrant or get the quadrant to respawn loot.

[Publik 404]

Most of your obvious concerns will obviously be addressed when they balance the system. 

 

You almost have a great post, but like Faux newz you try to make things seem worse than they are with comments like "

•  

It doesnt take into consideration that wrenches will be very useful for fixing vehicles and building things.

 

 

You fail to make the logic jump than when loot and zombies respawn server restarts wont need to happen very often. Let alone must not have read one of the 100 threads about how the hives will have a loot economy and persistant storage and all of the discussion already avalable.

 

Where do you even get off making a statement like that? You obviously dont know anything about what they are doing, what they are doing next, and what the end goal for the system is. Please stop posting this shit. You are stating things as if they are facts when you havent the most basic grasp of what your talking about.

I'm a developer too, ya knob. If I don't know what the devs are planning, it's not for lack of interest.

 

As for the "do wrenches count?" question, it's an important one. The mod had trash loot, we have trash loot in SA. Currently wrenches are trash loot. Pots and pans and camping stoves are trash loot as well. They don't currently have any sort of use, so no one will pick them up. If trash loot needs to be picked up before the quadrant will refill, that means that unless players pick up every single trash item in a 57km^2 square the square won't restock. If the case for a server to restock a quadrant is so strict that it will rarely happen, the implemented system won't do anything. If the system still spawns loot on server restart, the servers will still restart.

[Judopunch 523]

I'm a developer too, ya knob. If I don't know what the devs are planning, it's not for lack of interest.

 

As for the "do wrenches count?" question, it's an important one. The mod had trash loot, we have trash loot in SA. Currently wrenches are trash loot. Pots and pans and camping stoves are trash loot as well. They don't currently have any sort of use, so no one will pick them up. If trash loot needs to be picked up before the quadrant will refill, that means that unless players pick up every single trash item in a 57km^2 square the square won't restock. If the case for a server to restock a quadrant is so strict that it will rarely happen, the implemented system won't do anything. If the system still spawns loot on server restart, the servers will still restart.

 

Edit: The items you are complaining about, and the nature of your complaints are because the game is not finished. Next patch could have hunting and cooking in it, pots and pans would suddenly be very useful. You make the ASSUMPTION that their loot respawn system will not launch without addressing the 'trash loot', which is ok HOWEVER, it is not an issue because the game is not finished. The third patch down the way they could turn off hunting yet again making said pot and pan useless again. This is an alpha build, there are massive features missing let alone polish on the newest ones implemented. Yet, for some reason, you carry on your criticism of the alpha test AS IF it were a GAME. Now your post would have been more useful if you phrased suggestions instead of made assumptions. However even suggestions must be biased on assumptions of the features they may or may not implemented.

 

 

Who cares? That will be the first implementation of many, and it will be arguably better than what we have now. But you 'know this or know that'. I follow the devs pretty closely. Your screaming the sky is falling while they are still drafting what the sky is going to be.

 

Now Id love to be proven wrong. And Id also love to have a discussion to see if we can come up with situations. But I havent seen anything that you are complaining about confirmed. But if you have seen some information I have not please, do link it on over im hungry for that kind of stuff. But the most comprehensive thing was the quick overview he just gave at the convention. Not very many specifics, just huge general concepts.

 

The only reason that the experimental servers are up right now is because Dean is testing why loot is not spawning correctly http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/220hwx/loot_respawning_in_everybuilding_on_experimental/cgi6t13?context=1 He misuses the word 'respawning loot' when he means hes forcing loot to spawn and leaving the server running.

Edited April 4, 2014 by Judopunch

[Grimey Rick 3417]

ITT:

 

People pointing out obvious flaws in the system and people feeling the need to defend said flawed system for some unknown reason. Flawed system is flawed until it's not flawed.

[gibonez 3633]

What is the intended purpose of this mechanic?

 

Intended purpose is to cater to the whiny kids who want everything in the game immediately after they spawn.

 

Caters to the people too lazy to venture in land to find loot.

 

Caters to the casual newbies.

[Publik 404]

Now Id love to be proven wrong. And Id also love to have a discussion to see if we can come up with situations. But I havent seen anything that you are complaining about confirmed. But if you have seen some information I have not please, do link it on over im hungry for that kind of stuff. But the most comprehensive thing was the quick overview he just gave at the convention. Not very many specifics, just huge general concepts.

Define "complaining", if you'd be so kind. I posted a list of 8 neutral questions regarding the loot system, then a little bit about why those questions matter. I've added big green letters so you can understand why I asked what I did.

 

• What constitutes an "empty" quadrant? See below
  • Do useless items like wrenches count towards a quadrant being "empty"? If they do and people don't pick them up, will loot ever respawn?
  • Do players need to pick up these useless items to make the quadrant empty? See above
  • Do players dropping items cause a quadrant to not be empty? Do players simply have to pick up an item and drop it again to make the system ignore it? Can a player prevent a quadrant from spawning anything by dropping a can of beans in the forest.
• How quickly do quadrants restock? See below
  • If I pick up the last item in a quadrant, do all of the buildings around me suddenly spawn loot? This, if nothing else, is immersion breaking. It could also be exploited. You pick up that last frying pan and poof, new loot. Then you call your buddies and tell them the airfield is restocked.
• Are there any cities bisected by a quadrant line? It would create odd instances where one half of a city has loot spawn while the other half doesn't.
• Does loot still respawn on server restart anyways? If yes, can players even clear a quadrant fast enough to cause it to respawn before the server owner resets the server on their own? If no, can players even clear a quadrant before starving to death?

All I can see this system doing (if the last bullet isn't true) is that the servers will start with a bunch of loot, people will quickly snatch up all of the food, weapons, and ammo, and since the system doesn't sound like it'll restock very often people will just end up with an empty server, whereby "empty" I mean "without any usable loot, food, ammo, or weapons". If there isn't any loot because respawning loot rarely happens, New players won't find food and will starve, and if they don't starve they're not going to find any weapons or ammo and die to another player or zombie. Even more KoS since everyone will be starving and/or that guy over there might have some gear because he's the only place to get gear!

 

If the last bullet is true, nothing will change at all because even if it does respawn sometimes, it's far more reliable to just restart the server every 4 hours and presto, status quo maintained.

Hence why I call the system "hamfisted and inelegant". I then go on to describe a system that doesn't have these flaws and might act in a smoother manner, while providing additional motivation to explore or loot inland areas.

 

ITT:

 

People pointing out obvious flaws in the system and people feeling the need to defend said flawed system for some unknown reason. Flawed system is flawed until it's not flawed.

I don't get it either.

[gorvi 189]

Intended purpose is to cater to the whiny kids who want everything in the game immediately after they spawn.

 

Caters to the people too lazy to venture in land to find loot.

 

Caters to the casual newbies.

 

Nah.  You act like it will be instant and easy loot.  The amount of houses or loot and time to respawn has yet to be defined.  The only casuals they are appealing to is by sacrificing time which could have been used developing the core of the game.  Devs are slowly getting beat down by all the slander, instead working on gameplay when core mechanics still need work. 

 

Maybe cause they actually care and listen to the fans while wanting to keep us playing and enjoying their game.

Edited April 4, 2014 by Gorvi

[Judopunch 523]

How can a system be flawed. If it hasnt been built, tested, or released yet?

 

Still no links to all of the magical information that you have that I have yet to see. So your arguing, about a system, that no one knows any specifics about, before the framework of the system has ever even been seen?

 

K.

[gorvi 189]

Define "complaining", if you'd be so kind. I posted a list of 8 neutral questions regarding the loot system, then a little bit about why those questions matter. I've added big green letters so you can understand why I asked what I did.

 

Hence why I call the system "hamfisted and inelegant". I then go on to describe a system that doesn't have these flaws and might act in a smoother manner, while providing additional motivation to explore or loot inland areas.

 

I don't get it either.

 

Just because you have an idea, doesn't make it a good idea.  The ability to discus and accept others opinions would be a much more rewarding tool to help your idea grow rather than arguing.

 

In my opinion, your questions and ideas make a lot of assumptions while following very literal interpretations of the new loot system, disregarding common sense along with other players expectations or input.

[Publik 404]

How can a system be flawed. If it hasnt been built, tested, or released yet?

 

Still no links to all of the magical information that you have that I have yet to see. So your arguing, about a system, that no one knows any specifics about, before the framework of the system has ever even been seen?

 

K.

Right at 8:50, straight from Rocket's mouth.

• World divided into quadrants
• Quad resets when empty for X time
• Includes resetting doors
  • Door state randomly set on world start

That's all the info we have. What does "empty" mean? Empty of players? Empty of items? If it's players, how predictable is it? Can I cause a loot respawn on my own? If there are players spawning on the coasts, will the coasts ever restock items because of spawning players constantly resetting the timer. Are "quadrants" literally 57km^2 chunks or does he mean a quadtree? If it's a quadtree, how many steps in does it take? If it's items that cause a restock, does "empty" mean "below a certain threshold"? Do trash items count towards that number? Does this do anything to prevent server hopping? As the OP asks, what does this system attempt to fix?

 

If a system is in early development and we know a little about it, is it better to ask these questions now or wait until the system has been completed? I'd rather ask now instead of waiting for the team finish it, only to find out that said system is exploitable and needs to be reworked.

 

Just because you have an idea, doesn't make it a good idea.  The ability to discus and accept others opinions would be a much more rewarding tool to help your idea grow rather than arguing.

 

In my opinion, your questions and ideas make a lot of assumptions while following very literal interpretations of the new loot system, disregarding common sense along with other players expectations or input.

Why wouldn't it be common sense to take what a developer says literally? If Rocket says "We're adding vehicles", should I disregard the very literal statement that they're adding vehicles and instead assume that they're adding tanks and airplanes? Rocket says that under said system the world is divided into quadrants. That's 4 sections, split into NE, NW, SE, and SW squares. These quadrants reset after being "empty" for a timer. Also, doors reset. I've got questions about those very factual statements.

 

I'm mainly arguing with Judo because I don't like him and I'm bored. He hasn't provided any other opinions other than "it's an alpha", so there's no way for me to grow anything. Also, this thread isn't about my ideas, it's about Rocket's ideas. I just brought it up as an example of an alternate method, which Rocket could use as a much more rewarding tool to help his idea grow.

Edited April 4, 2014 by Publik

[P0rkchop 31]

 

System is hamfisted and inelegant. It's also not very transparent to the player.

• What constitutes an "empty" quadrant?
  • Do useless items like wrenches count towards a quadrant being "empty"?
  • Do players need to pick up these useless items to make the quadrant empty?
  • Do players dropping items cause a quadrant to not be empty?
• How quickly do quadrants restock?
  • If I pick up the last item in a quadrant, do all of the buildings around me suddenly spawn loot?
• Are there any cities bisected by a quadrant line?
• Does loot still respawn on server restart anyways?

All I can see this system doing (if the last bullet isn't true) is that the servers will start with a bunch of loot, people will quickly snatch up all of the food, weapons, and ammo, and since the system doesn't sound like it'll restock very often people will just end up with an empty server. New players won't find food and will starve, and if they don't they're not going to find any weapons or ammo. Even more KoS since everyone will be starving and/or that guy over there might have some gear!

 

If the last bullet is true, nothing will change at all. 

 

I've proposed a better solution in my signature. The gist of it is that the server keeps a tally of the number of items held in that server and held by the players of that server. Let's assume a server has 19,000 unique items (250 of which are carried by players) and it wants to keep a stock of 20,000. Every X-Y minutes, the server decides to restock loot on the server. In this case, it would want to spawn 1,000 new items to bring the total back up. The server would then pick 1,000 loot locations. If a picked location is

• Filled
• Has a player within X00 meters

throw that location away and pick a new one. This has a sanity count of 1,000 to 2,000 tries before it gives up and uses the current list of acceptable locations.

 

This system would

• Spawn loot away from players
• Not spawn loot near players (loot cycling)
• Lower the loot in high-traffic areas (airfields, etc, makes server hopping less profitable, drives people away from the kill zones)
• Implants the idea that "there's always loot over that hill, or in that little farmhouse, or in that town we haven't checked in a few hours" (promotes exploration)

 

I interpreted "empty" as no players there. Hmm I wonder what the best system is

[Katana67 2907]

Yeah, another thing about the "quadrant" system is that certain quadrants will inevitably be weighted with loot. Unless they make each "quadrant" the same, which would be boring and probably would cause folks to continue residing on the coast 24/7.