vehicles?

[aspekx 0]

FIRSTOFF: i don't care how you play on your server or any other i spose. some ppl really enjoy one thing, some another. if i have ever been for *any* game mechanic it has always been diversity of playstyle. so when read the following, please don't assume i hate helis, vods, w/e your personal pet is, cuz i truly and honestly don't and can say that i have enjoyed a number of these myself.

 

curmudgeon follows:

 

but really i do think it's more than being old and cranky (i hope). in the past i have really enjoyed hitching a ride on a heli, heli drops, vodniks even unarmed can be so much fun.

 

however, im beginning to have my doubts. it seems more and more like the race to endgame in an mmorpg then a survival experience. add in purchasing most weapons and vehicles and it seems to go down a notch further for me.

 

it really struck me today when someone had been apparently camping an airfield (duh), but they announced they were done when they had enough guns to buy their heli and i thought ... is that it?  i mean you gotta get the cash first of course, which can be a fair challenge. but once you're there ... what? just fly over all opposition land directly on top of the loot shoot your way thru some zeds or unsuspecting freshies rinse and repeat?

 

just seems like travel has lost all of it's power or cost. sure there's the server with the armored vehicle and it's AA guns ... or w/e and there's the occasional AI threat. all of these depending on the server.

 

i dunno, it seems that flight as a generic game mechanic, not specific to this game, but to any game with an overland travel mechanic, removes much of the player encounter and becomes just an easy way to hop around and grab loot.

 

i get that phatlootz is a big part of this game. it's why so many ppl still play oldschool Diablo -- kill monster grab loot! it is a fun mechanic. but even there you had inventory limits, choices had to be made, things left behind maybe.

 

and it's not just flight, but have you ever ridden in a well armed armored vehicle through the center of zombie central? it's hilarious fun. and at times makes you wonder how the zed could have ever come close to winning. still i kinda wonder where the struggle to survive in that is?

 

maybe, folks are tired of survival as a main game mechanic. i have thought a few times that the evolution for Epoch and other ARMA mods would move more towards an FFA PvP game because frankly a lot of time the zeds are just background noise, esp if you have one of these vehicles. which makes it pricey for someone with few resources to strike, but a no brainer for someone with a blackhawk/vod and enough ammo to fund a small war.

 

okay, again, please dont take any of this as an attack on playstyles. frankly, i hope none of these options go away. i dont want them to, but i am wondering about game mechanics in general and how their presence or absence might impact player experiences.

[TheRedScare 353]

I used to run an epoch server in which you couldn't fill up fuel tanks/barrels/cans anywhere. You had to buy it at a ridiculous rate from a trader. So say you bought a heli for a briefcase of gold. You have a fill fuel tank. However when that runs out it costs 1 10oz gold bar for a jerry can and a briefcase for a barrel. I removed all fuel spawns too. Only a rare jerry can is able to spawn now and then.

[xalienax 621]

IMHO the only thing that really breaks Epoch is one of its trademark features- the AI trader.

 

If you atleast had to scrounge scrimp and fight your way to the top as a unit with your mates or clan to maintain your motorpool it'd be a fun challenge almost like a road warrio type environment, but they ability to take almost anything you find and convert it to gold via the traders, then into more vehicles and ammo means ANY crew with 5-10 people can easily farm an infinate supply of Bhawks or armed vodniks, etc.

[kichilron 8550]

maybe, folks are tired of survival as a main game mechanic. i have thought a few times that the evolution for Epoch and other ARMA mods would move more towards an FFA PvP game because frankly a lot of time the zeds are just background noise, esp if you have one of these vehicles. which makes it pricey for someone with few resources to strike, but a no brainer for someone with a blackhawk/vod and enough ammo to fund a small war.

 

 

IMHO the only thing that really breaks Epoch is one of its trademark features- the AI trader.

 

 

 

Epoch isn't supposed to cater the needs of the "normal" DayZ player. Infact - Epoch can't be further off from what DayZ is supposed to be. It's not the same crowd it attracts, as the DayZ people figured out it's not what it is supposed to be in the first place. There's no scarcity at all - you can just buy everything. And even though it's supposed to be hard to obtain that money, it isn't.

 

Anyway: all of what you said leaves me with a feeling that you were playing Epoch with the though that you're playing DayZ Mod. You weren't.

 

Try the actual mod out or try out MustyZ (that's the more survival-esque version of DayZ mod developed by r4z0r49 and me.

[xalienax 621]

played the official mod heavily for a long time mate. All i had ever hoped from SA was a sort of hybrid that had the indepth construction of Epoch and the bare basics aspects of the vanilla.

 

Origins was initially appealing to me as well untill they got really gimmickey and startted to really depart from any semblance of realism. (EG flying fortress is fun the first time your clan owns one, then you relaize how enitrely rediculius the idea of this arising in an apocalypse is.)

 

I enjoy playing as a clan and Endgame content that basicly dictates large group cooperation to achive the most ambitions constructions is important to me- At the same time it needs to exist in an architecture where you ahve to work for it and not simply cycle a big old pile and sell it at the trade to buy a ural full of anything you could want.

 

on one epoch server my clan was playing at one point we had completely fortified Rog castle withcinder block walls and steel garage doors- had 2 black hawks and aMI8 that were armed with guns, a ZSU-32 ural, and like 4 fuel trucks not to mention 50+ briefcases at one point. its obscene how easy it was to pile up assets with even a small group.

[Korsbaek 1778]

 its obscene how easy it was to pile up assets with even a small group.

 

That's just how Epoch is. Find another mod without basebuilding and traders then.

[xalienax 621]

That's just how Epoch is. Find another mod without basebuilding and traders then.

base building 100% want. Easy for 5 people to have infinate everything, dont want.

[aspekx 0]

i think in general kichilron is right in that Epoch is not DayZ.

 

i think, that like Sovetsky, i was expecting a progressive move from DayZ, not an evolutionary leap or new species.

 

let me add this however, i do think that what Epoch offers, as it stands now, is something that a lot of players are looking for: FFA PvP, looting, raiding, and base building. in another year i would think that even the zombies will be gone from Epoch so that the above items become the focus of Epoch.

 

that isn't a bad thing to me. i love diversity of game play and mechanics. i just would also like to see some more diversity in actual survival gameplay, perhaps as suggested by both Red Scare and Sovetsky a game w/o traders at all or incredibly limited ones.

 

perhaps a completely player run economy with a trader safe zone with the only traders being players.

 

anyways, just thoughts of mine. and i do appreciate the other input here. it helps me figure out what i find lacking or even desirable in the game mechanics available.

[xalienax 621]

i think in general kichilron is right in that Epoch is not DayZ.

 

i think, that like Sovetsky, i was expecting a progressive move from DayZ, not an evolutionary leap or new species.

 

let me add this however, i do think that what Epoch offers, as it stands now, is something that a lot of players are looking for: FFA PvP, looting, raiding, and base building. in another year i would think that even the zombies will be gone from Epoch so that the above items become the focus of Epoch.

 

that isn't a bad thing to me. i love diversity of game play and mechanics. i just would also like to see some more diversity in actual survival gameplay, perhaps as suggested by both Red Scare and Sovetsky a game w/o traders at all or incredibly limited ones.

 

perhaps a completely player run economy with a trader safe zone with the only traders being players.

 

anyways, just thoughts of mine. and i do appreciate the other input here. it helps me figure out what i find lacking or even desirable in the game mechanics available.

That last bit, so much so. If your foced to deal with other players its no so bad. the problem with Epochs' apporach atleas from a true dayZ player's view point is that it means you can basily just cycle a ural full of "rubish loot" sell it to the trader and leave with a Blackhawk packing miniguns.

 

A few things SA could do with it to take advantage of whats been learned without all the draw backs;

 

1. Get rid of the gold bars concept entirely. its there to make an easily quantifiable currency for the sake of coding the AI traders. P2P trading barter sysetm ONLY.

2. I like thier system for crafting multiple of one into a larger version of the same thing and sysetm for base building using this meathod. However, remove the whole plot pole/ownership mechanics. no one is going to respect your ownership of anything in the apocalypse unless your standing there with a gun.

3. No super-advanced vehicles like blackhawks, Hinds, etc. they wont remain operational for long in the apocalypse and even if a few individuals had the training to maintain thier intricate electronics or turbojet engines, finding the precision engineered parts (often built in various factories hundreds or tousands of miles away) required would be nearly impossible.

4. Vehicles based on more more primitive designs (such as those common in 3rd world countries with simple Internal comubstion engines and early diesel engines) would be somewhat manageable for a civillian with some mechanical background to maintain. aditionally simpler designs allow "back country enginnering" or... fashioning of simpler parts from materials avilable.

5. Any helicopters should be based on early designs for the same reasons above. a civilian worked as an mechanic or perhaps even an aircraft mechanic could concievably maintai simpler helis that are more akin to ultra-lights then modern choppers. (think ver early vietnam era prior to the advent of the huey)

[aspekx 0]

very good points.

 

i think deep down what appeals to players of 'apocalypse' and 'survival' scenario games is not only the challenge of getting by, but the whole idea of a fresh start.

 

if i were to start a new survival game i would base it on a plague that wiped most of humanity out, or some other global natural catastrophe.

 

from there i would want to see basic crafting from hunting and gathering to gardening and farming and finally the building of settlements. i think an added element might be to replace traders with high level craftsman. so, not everyone can craft a steel plough, but an npc metalsmith could for the right gathered materials and something extra as payment.

 

this way the game could keep a cap on tech advancement as well as in the broader sense the player economy and relations.

 

 

completely unrelated rabbit trail, education rant follows:

on a sidenote one of the more troubling things i hear repeatedly in reference to the free for all killing is that it's 'evolution' and 'survival of the fittest'. what bothers me is that these interpretations of evolutionary biology are over a century out of date. the fact is we find that species spend less time killing each other and fighting each other over resources as they do in cooperation. why? because having only one member of the species survive is not the survival of the species at all. and there are even more pertinent reasons than just that as well: the wider the diversity of genetics, even genetics deemed at the time as 'weak' or unnecessary can at some point come to the fore as a prominent trait that leads to a species survival. ie., the more the merrier as far as genes seem to be concerned.

it's just depressing that the most basic concepts in why a species survives as a whole and not as individuals appears to be completely uknown to the larger community.