Why Were Helicopters "Overpowered" In The Vanilla Mod?

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

Thats a problem with the rendering engine and the LOD system that is greatly exaggerated when in an aerial vehicle.

 

Helicopters just make the problem more apparent or more obvious.

Can't have everything at the same time, look at FSX.

[terminal_boy 860]

Given that there's less ground cover and lower tree density in the SA, there will be no hiding from helicopters unless you're in a building.

Which makes the idea of Lone Wolfing it from a well-hidden camp even less possible than it is now.

[gibonez 3633]

Given that there's less ground cover and lower tree density in the SA, there will be no hiding from helicopters unless you're in a building.

Which makes the idea of Lone Wolfing it from a well-hidden camp even less possible than it is now.

 

Imagine once base building is in.

 

You encounter a base take a few pop shots and hide.

 

Base launches helicopter and within 3 seconds in the air they can spot you due to the way the game renders at a distance.

[terminal_boy 860]

Indeed.

Unless PP and a high level of motion blur are forced when on board a helicopter, a good crew could clear the map in 30 minutes or less.

[Etherimp 1323]

*sigh*.. This issue again? 


Katana, let me explain this to you from the perspective of someone who played the Vanilla mod for over a year, and had control of several heli's over that time.

 

 

-The problem is NOT parachuting.

 

-The problem is NOT helicopters being used as agents of destruction. Gunner seats were very difficult to use effectively if the helicopter was moving at all. It requires a good pilot and good communication between the pilot and the gunners to even secure a kill. 

 

-Helicopters in and of themselves are not "overpowered" in the traditional sense of the word.

 

-The problem was NOT availability of fuel.. Best way to fuel a heli was to get 2-3 players carrying 4 jerry cans each. If you do not have at least 1 person on overwatch, you leave yourself extremely vulnerable to sniper fire, which could result in someone jacking  your heli. (It's happened.. a lot)

 

-Heli's and cars are VERY difficult to use in 1st person perspective, due to the horrible FOV in 1st person. It's very difficult to navigate a vehicle in purely 1st person perspective, unless you like running into things and popping your tires.. Or, with Heli's, how do you expect to land? From 1st person perspective it CAN be challenging to know whether you're landing on a flat area or not, and if you're not it could send the heli sliding.

 

Here's the problem..

 

In the "Vanilla" mod, there were 4 helicopters available.

 

1. Huey on Skalisky Island

2. Mi-17 at Devils Castle

3. Black Littlebird at Black Mountain

4. Silver Littlebird at NEAF

 

 

To repair a heli from "completely broken" to "completely fixed", you needed

 

1 Main Rotor (Hangers, Crash sites)

1 Engine (higher value industrial)

4 Scrap Metal (Low -> High value industrial)

8 Windscreen glass. (Low -> High value industrial)

 

To repair all 4 heli's you needed 

 

4 Main Rotor, 4 Engine, 16 Scrap, 32 Windscreen glass.

 

You can also assume that you would need at least 4 Jerry Cans per heli, preferably 8.. But Jerry Cans could be moved from one vehicle to the other, as long as you had enough on the vehicle you were using to refuel quickly when the need arose. Besides, Jerry Cans were relatively easy to find.. (They spawned in Farm and Industrial loot spawns.)

 

All of this could be farmed over the course of a week, if necessary.. When you have a clan of several friends, if 1-2 of the players dedicate themselves to farming heli parts during the slow periods of server population, you could pretty easily procure all the parts required.

 

So, the clan in question gathers all these parts and stores them in some form of persistent storage (A tent, another vehicle, whatever), and the group scouts out which heli's are at their spawn point... After obtaining all of the parts, they group up, and quickly repair the available helicopter, refuel it in about 10 minutes, and begin searching.

 

First, scout all of the other heli spawns.. If a heli is in its spawn location, repair it, refuel it, and hide it.. Then, fly around the border of the map.. then fly around to all of the common hiding spots (there are only a few dozen).. Then fly over all of the forest on the borders of the map.. Then fly over some of the lesser used hiding spots more inland.. By this point, usually you've found all 4 of the heli's on the map, and it usually only takes a few hours. IF you haven't, someone on the server is very good at hiding a heli, at which point you take a more systematic approach and search every quadrant of the map thoroughly, which may take a few more hours.

 

All of this can be done in one night.

 

Once you have all 4 helicopters in your possession, you can hide all 4 heli's in remote locations and it severely limits the possibility of others finding your camp, because they have no access to heli's themselves.

 

The next biggest threat is offroad vehicles. UAZ, Humvee, 2 White Offroads, Military Offroad, several ATV's.

 

ATV's are the most difficult to control, seeing as they are the most abundant, and are often in other players possession. 

 

The Offroad vehicles can either be repeatedly destroyed upon every server restart, or they could simply be gathered up and moved to a hidden location.. you could even hide them with your helis.

Hiding your base/vehicles increases in difficulty the more populated the server is on a regular basis, but more experienced players know a few key tricks to hiding vehicles even on populated servers.

 

Once you have control of all the heli's, it becomes a trivial matter to fly around every night and smash camps. And smashing camps ruins server populations and is anti-fun for everyone involved. At one point, I ran with a group of about 5 guys on a populated US Vanilla server, and we maintained control over all of the helicopters and offroad vehicles for a span of 4 months. The only time our camp was found was by hackers. What eventually ended our reign of terror was that one of our trusted friends betrayed us and satchel charged our camp, and used inside knowledge to prevent us from maintaining future camps. Over the span of this 4 months, the average population of the server we played on took a huge crash, and it actually became extremely boring, and ruined the game for us.

As long as there are dedicated groups of competitive players, there will be someone who exploits the very fundamental realities of helicopters existing in a game with a map that's the size Chernarus is, and which has other players attempting to keep vehicles/camps.

[coalminer 43]

Idiots and crybabies are going to ruin this game for me. How anything can be overpowered when everyone have equal chances to get their hands on it?

 

It is not easy to spot players unless they are completely clueless.

Tents and vehicles - yes. But if I have a heli then I wouldn't bother stopping at every tent and every vehicle.

 

I spent many many hours playing the mod, probably close to 1000 hours, that includes mods like Overwatch (lots of helis) and I can't remember being killed a single time by a helicopter. It probably happened, but if I can't even remember (I don't drink or use substances) it is clearly a rare event and not an issue. I have been shot at by helis many times. I have shot down multiple helis with regular firearms, took over even more of them, been shot down while flying many times, and of course killed many players while flying. And I am not even very good at this game. So I really hate to say these words but to those who cry about helis being overpovered: learn to play. It is very easy to avoid being killed by a heli even after they spot you, unless they have people on the ground, even then it is manageable.

 

BUT, the main point, even being hunted by a heli is FUN, how anyone can not see that. Even if you die, there is a good chance for epicness, and why anyone would say no to that? Instead you prefer to do something apparently much more interesting - collecting beans. What is wrong with you people, you already have boring lives, why do you want a boring game.

Edited May 17, 2014 by coalminer

[FrostDMG 398]

Like I said in my other thread, helicopters basically:

 

• Nullify distance
• Make getting from point A to B completly safe (unless you're flying like a complete spas 10m over NWAF and are wondering why you're getting shot at) - you can't take down a moving heli unless you have a .50 cal and get a lucky shot. All this 7.62 bullshit only works when they're auto hovering. 
• Allow a group to control the map by finding all the camps and vehicles in a matter of minutes - you can just log on after a server restart and fly over every vehicle spawn to see if something's there, or just find every camp on the map and GG.
• Fact that most of the ground and trees do not render when you're in a heli means looking for players or camps is just too easy.

[Etherimp 1323]

Idiots and crybabies are going to ruin this game for me. How anything can be overpowered when everyone have equal chances to get their hands on it?

 

It is not easy to spot players unless they are completely clueless.

Tents and vehicles - yes. But if I have a heli then I wouldn't bother stopping at every tent and every vehicle.

 

I spent many many hours playing the mod, probably close to 1000 hours, that includes mods like Overwatch (lots of helis) and I can't remember being killed a single time by a helicopter. It probably happened, but if I can't even remember (I don't drink or use substances) it is clearly a rare event and not an issue. I have been shot at by helis many times. I have shot down multiple helis with regular firearms, took over even more of them, been shot down while flying many times, and of course killed many players while flying. And I am not even very good at this game. So I really hate to say these words but to those who cry about helis being overpovered: learn to play. It is very easy to avoid being killed by a heli even after they spot you, unless they have people on the ground, even then it is manageable.

 

BUT, the main point, even being hunted by a heli is FUN, how anyone can not see that. Even if you die, there is a good chance for epicness, and why anyone would say no to that? Instead you prefer to do something apparently much more interesting - collecting beans. What is wrong with you people, you already have boring lives, why do you want a boring game.

 

 

Read the post above yours. Obviously, we knew/know how to play the game. Us killing other players was not a problem. We only used the Mi-17/Huey to kill maybe a handful of players. Most of our time spent in helicopters was spent picking people up, dropping people off, searching for heli crashes, and searching for other peoples camps. If you didn't stop for other peoples vehicles/tents, then you are ignorant of how over-powered a helicopter is when it comes to doing that.

 

 

DayZ is supposed to be a "survival horror" game.. With an emphasis on "survival".. Survival involves starting out with nothing, testing yourself against the zombies, other players, and the elements/dangers of the world.. Once you become better at surviving, the next step is setting up a camp and settling in on a server.. Then finding vehicles and using vehicles to travel faster and get more things done. If every time you attempt to set up a camp or get a vehicle some asshole (me) who has possession of all the helicopters on the map flies over your camp and destroys/steals all of your shit, you will quickly get tired of starting from scratch and you will find another server to play on.

 

Hence: Helicopters are bad for DayZ.

[FrostDMG 398]

*sigh*.. This issue again? 

 

SNIP

 

Fantastic post. I can't imagine how people can read that and still think helis will be good.

[Bororm 1156]

Unless you guys were sticking your camp out in the debug plains (something that was fixed any ways, or at least any private hive dealt with it nicely) then you were just playing with not so clever folk, because as you said there are only so many places to hide a helicopter so I fail to believe that every day you had control over all helicopters on a populated server, or that your camp was never found, unless again, you were just very lucky with playing against "noobs" for lack of a better term =P

 

In either case, if you were spending several hours each day flying around to destroy/capture other vehicles/helicopters, then what's the issue?

That's something for you to do, it's something for other people to do.

 

We can assume base building is going to be much more elaborate than tents in the SA and we can hope that they'll be created with helicopters and vehicles in mind.  What's the issue.  These sort of "end game" conflicts are exactly the sort of stuff the game needs.

 

People quitting because their camp got destroyed are going to quit regardless.  That's the type of people they are, quitters.  Should this game be designed around quitters?

[FrostDMG 398]

Unless you guys were sticking your camp out in the debug plains (something that was fixed any ways, or at least any private hive dealt with it nicely) then you were just playing with not so clever folk, because as you said there are only so many places to hide a helicopter so I fail to believe that every day you had control over all helicopters on a populated server, or that your camp was never found, unless again, you were just very lucky with playing against "noobs" for lack of a better term =P

 

In either case, if you were spending several hours each day flying around to destroy/capture other vehicles/helicopters, then what's the issue?

That's something for you to do, it's something for other people to do.

 

We can assume base building is going to be much more elaborate than tents in the SA and we can hope that they'll be created with helicopters and vehicles in mind.  What's the issue.  These sort of "end game" conflicts are exactly the sort of stuff the game needs.

 

People quitting because their camp got destroyed are going to quit regardless.  That's the type of people they are, quitters.  Should this game be designed around quitters?

 

I gather you've never played with a group with a heli. People LEAVE the server because of the ultimate power that you wield with your heli. The game becomes boring because nobody wants to play on a server where things that you work towards - vehicles or camps  - are found within couple of hour by the all seeing heli.

 

Also, trust me, going through all the possible places (on foot) where there COULD be a heli can take you a LOT of hours. The helis might be spread out or all in one place, good luck finding them when you don't have one.

[Bororm 1156]

I gather you've never played with a group with a heli. People LEAVE the server because of the ultimate power that you wield with your heli. The game becomes boring because nobody wants to play on a server where things that you work towards - vehicles or camps  - are found within couple of hour by the all seeing heli.

 

Also, trust me, going through all the possible places (on foot) where there COULD be a heli can take you a LOT of hours. The helis might be spread out or all in one place, good luck finding them when you don't have one.

 

I've actually played a lot in a group with helis and while they are very good for spotting vehicles/tents as mentioned, you also need to invest the time to actually go down and either check or break said things.  I'd argue they're actually beneficial to a server for clearing up hidden vehicles and getting them back into circulation.

 

Also, it is not hard to check the map without a heli.  It takes a lot longer for sure, but if you've got a vehicle it's not that bad.  The map is not as big as people like to pretend it is, and as mentioned the popular hiding spots become known and are obvious.  So again, unless we're talking about hiding shit way out off the map I don't see the big problem.

 

Also, who the hell logs off because they died to a group using a helicopter?  I would rather not design the game around those players, just as the game should not be designed around all the people who cry about KOS.  These are the types of players who are going to quit regardless.

 

The only situation where not having a helicopter and trying to get a helicopter is an extreme disadvantage is when people used to land them on top of the castles or buildings that you couldn't reach without one.  However, you could still blow it up at least.

Edited May 17, 2014 by Bororm

[FrostDMG 398]

If it's really too much effort to get out of the heli to check vehicles or a camp you found, then how the fuck have you managed to play the stand alone without one... Holy shit.

[coalminer 43]

Read the post above yours. Obviously, we knew/know how to play the game. Us killing other players was not a problem. We only used the Mi-17/Huey to kill maybe a handful of players. Most of our time spent in helicopters was spent picking people up, dropping people off, searching for heli crashes, and searching for other peoples camps. If you didn't stop for other peoples vehicles/tents, then you are ignorant of how over-powered a helicopter is when it comes to doing that.

 

 

DayZ is supposed to be a "survival horror" game.. With an emphasis on "survival".. Survival involves starting out with nothing, testing yourself against the zombies, other players, and the elements/dangers of the world.. Once you become better at surviving, the next step is setting up a camp and settling in on a server.. Then finding vehicles and using vehicles to travel faster and get more things done. If every time you attempt to set up a camp or get a vehicle some asshole (me) who has possession of all the helicopters on the map flies over your camp and destroys/steals all of your shit, you will quickly get tired of starting from scratch and you will find another server to play on.

 

Hence: Helicopters are bad for DayZ.

Yeah, I stopped for camps/vehicles at first. After 30th empty camp I stopped doing that. Actually, if I am flying in a helicopter it means that I am going to die in a crash so I don't need anything. And keeping a helicopter over the course of multiple game sessions is something that never happens, nowhere to hide it on such a small map. Same goes for your camp, it would be looted in 3 days tops, with helis or without them. If it isn't the case with you then you are playing with noobs as Bororm said.

 

About the game being supposed to be a survival horror, well, I am not scared so it isn't a horror and surviving is pretty easy if you know what to do. Ok, you survived, now what? Boring. Why limit the game to survival when it can be much more and still have your precious survival.

[Bororm 1156]

If it's really too much effort to get out of the heli to check vehicles or a camp you found, then how the fuck have you managed to play the stand alone without one... Holy shit.

 

Don't be obtuse.  I'm saying that it takes effort to do so, it's not a trivial task to go around a map and destroy every single vehicle and tent.  So if you're investing that much time into it, what's the problem?  That's something to do.

 

You've also given those players something to do as well, as now they need to remake their camps and get new vehicles.  Vehicle hoarding/tent bases are actually sorta detrimental to gameplay if there's low risk of losing them.

 

My group usually didn't bother going around fucking up every single tent and vehicle we came across because what's the point?  But if you're going to be a "dick" and make that your sole purpose every single night, to go wreck everyone else's stuff, then wonder why your server is dying then I don't know what to say.  I personally have no gripe at all if that's what you choose to do, I believe all playstyles are valid, but realize the consequence is obvious.

 

It's a sandbox, I don't see a problem with the freedom to completely fuck it up.  Some other players could always actually get together to stop you any ways.

Edited May 17, 2014 by Bororm

[FrostDMG 398]

LOL.

 

Without helis, you'd be surprised how long you can keep a cap even in the most OBVIOUS of places. I'm talking 2 weeks.

 

Go to DayZ map and look up the coordinates under my profile pic. That's where we had 1 ural, 1 gaz, 1 uaz and the V3S hidden for 2 weeks on a server before someone found it. We even had tank traps and barbed wire fence to make it extra easy to find.

[coalminer 43]

If it's really too much effort to get out of the heli to check vehicles or a camp you found, then how the fuck have you managed to play the stand alone without one... Holy shit.

Yes it is too much effort because most camps are looted and empty. You can't really hide stuff on this not very big map.

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

So yeah, folks say that helicopters could "dominate" the map in the mod, without actually considering what factors allowed them to "dominate" (which is highly debatable).

 

In my two years of playing the mod, I can count on one hand how many times I've been killed by a helicopter. I never found them to be remotely outlandish in what they allowed players to do. One is trading speed and visibility for stealth. And the helicopters could be taken down by small arms fire. Plus one requires a group to be effective offensively, otherwise, they're just glorified [and loud] flying cars. And folks on the ground, more often than not, could evade the helicopter's ire by simply... not firing at the helicopter.

 

I've taken the liberty of breaking down the factors which could be considered to make helicopters "overpowered" in the mod (none of which have to do with helicopters as a concept)...

 

1. Easy to spot players from the air due to client-side spawns of zombies

 

2. Easy to spot players from the air due to artificially turning down graphics settings (i.e. ATOC)

 

3. Easy to spot vehicles/tents from the air due to a lack of camouflage/storage options and poor graphical contrast

 

4. Highly flexible third-person view whilst piloting

 

5. Readily available and inconsequential fuel supplies

 

6. Auto-refill ammunition on armed helicopters upon server restart

 

7. Generic repair parts which are able to be found across the map

 

8. Every pilot and passenger gets an innate parachute, able to deploy teammates without risking the helicopter itself

 

DISCLAIMER - This does not apply to mods of the vanilla mod.

 

 

You forgot racing around after server restarts to hit every helicopter crash site before others got there.

[coalminer 43]

LOL.

 

Without helis, you'd be surprised how long you can keep a cap even in the most OBVIOUS of places. I'm talking 2 weeks.

 

Go to DayZ map and look up the coordinates under my profile pic. That's where we had 1 ural, 1 gaz, 1 uaz and the V3S hidden for 2 weeks on a server before someone found it. We even had tank traps and barbed wire fence to make it extra easy to find.

Ah, vehicle hoarders. It totally explains why you are against helicopters.

[FrostDMG 398]

Ah, vehicle hoarders. It totally explains why you are against helicopters.

 

Yeah, massive vehicle hoarder. We were playing in a group of 8, and since we couldn't fit everyone in the cars we needed other vehicles for raiding camps or NWAF. 

 

Here's a funny video I found (this is my group back when we were bored after getting all these cars that we decided to raid NWAF) - pretty funny, would've never happened if there were helis.

 

 

Oh yeah, my mic didn't record but you get the gist.

Edited May 17, 2014 by FrostDMG

[Bororm 1156]

Without watching it, I can tell you, whatever it is, it could have happened with helicopters on the server.   Unless of course, it's a video involving a helicopter.

 

But heeeey hyperbole, who needs anything else!

Edited May 17, 2014 by Bororm

[xalienax 621]

So yeah, folks say that helicopters could "dominate" the map in the mod, without actually considering what factors allowed them to "dominate" (which is highly debatable).

 

In my two years of playing the mod, I can count on one hand how many times I've been killed by a helicopter. I never found them to be remotely outlandish in what they allowed players to do. One is trading speed and visibility for stealth. And the helicopters could be taken down by small arms fire. Plus one requires a group to be effective offensively, otherwise, they're just glorified [and loud] flying cars. And folks on the ground, more often than not, could evade the helicopter's ire by simply... not firing at the helicopter.

 

I've taken the liberty of breaking down the factors which could be considered to make helicopters "overpowered" in the mod (none of which have to do with helicopters as a concept)...

 

1. Easy to spot players from the air due to client-side spawns of zombies

 

2. Easy to spot players from the air due to artificially turning down graphics settings (i.e. ATOC)

 

3. Easy to spot vehicles/tents from the air due to a lack of camouflage/storage options and poor graphical contrast

 

4. Highly flexible third-person view whilst piloting

 

5. Readily available and inconsequential fuel supplies

 

6. Auto-refill ammunition on armed helicopters upon server restart

 

7. Generic repair parts which are able to be found across the map

 

8. Every pilot and passenger gets an innate parachute, able to deploy teammates without risking the helicopter itself

 

DISCLAIMER - This does not apply to mods of the vanilla mod.

The only real "severe" issue with choppers was the ability to see things you shouldnt due to the un-rendered foliage when flying. all the other stuff was pretty much a universal issue to all vehicles but again, not game breaking at all. As the only vehicle that could shoot back however; its ammo count should persist rather then being a full clip after restart. it actually makes it worth loot farming for chopper ammo.

 

Force helicopters into first-person only view, and fix 1, 2, and 3, and helicopters will be okay with me.

it's called hardcore. all the other issues tho are valid- especially with regards to the "god view" due to stuff not rendering.

[Karmaterror 982]

The truth is they weren't overpowered. They were just right. Don't forget the disadvantages faced by the guys in the heis...

 

1 0 cover when in door gunner seat

2 firing from a platform that moves, that's a lot harder than firing from a stationary position and compensating for the targets movement.

3 noise....these things broadcast your location to anyone within about 2000m

4 you best be carful and plan flightpaths back to campsites otherwise people will just take a bearing as you fly over and find your camp

5.In the mod it took a looooong time to fuel one up....painfully so if doing it alone.

 

The fact they made camps easy to find was only a good thing. It was natural map clean up, and made people look harder for a safe campsite. (and that's coming from someone who knows the bitter taste of loosing big campsites to the group with the heli)

 

Honestly the only peeps I can see who think they are OP have never engaged one from the ground. Hell iv had one spot me......set itelf into auto hover then waist both door guns ammo trying to shoot me as I hid behind a tree.....the whole while cussing because im a fresh spawn with no gun and hes giving me a golden opportunity......auto hover. Lost count of the nab pilots that blast in there and hit auto....easy pickings.

 

Plus the heli rush was awesome on the mod, wed have groups spreading word the heli went down and then loads showing up next restart to hunt it. Even groups converging on it....fighting over it and in the end no-one gets it till the next day, just an epic battle over it Some people want goals and missions in dayz, the heli not only creates a universal goal, but creates a plethora of user inspired scenarios :)

 

One thing I will say tho is that if you find the right spot to stash it you can keep it for a long time.....and ofc if you are sensible about when and what you use it for :)

Edited May 17, 2014 by Karmaterror

[coalminer 43]

Here's a funny video I found (this is my group back when we were bored after getting all these cars that we decided to raid NWAF) - pretty funny, would've never happened if there were helis.

 

Have you played Overwatch? Things like that happen all the time, plus helis above, they only add to the fun.

[Karmaterror 982]

You forgot racing around after server restarts to hit every helicopter crash site before others got there.

 

I thought they solved that by making the CS spawn in over time while the server was up?