Survival (Too Easy?)

[dinosaurlegs 42]

Survival

  Is it too easy?

 

In your opinion is it too easy to find food in game? It seems like  :beans: are everywhere (except my posts)
But in all seriousness, I believe it's too easy to find food. Especially when they add hunting/fishing to stable their won't be much of a point to hunt for food; considering the plethora you can find in any town or village.

 

 

 

What about guns and ammunition? They're so readily available that it would be pointless to craft a bow.

 

 

How 'bout them backpacks? They're too common for anyone to need to craft one. It take 5(x) longer to find rope, a stick, and a burlap sack than it does to find any backpack.

 

 

Give me your opinions..

 

[Death By Crowbar 1213]

That's a lot of questions.

 

It depends on the server you're on. If you're on a high pop server that doesn't restart often things will be very scarce unless you head far inland. If you're on a low pop server or a server that restarts every hour or so you're going to find plenty of stuff and one could argue that it's too easy. I mean, for water - I carry a bottle or canteen with me and fill it in lakes, rivers, and with rain water so drink is easy when you've got one of those. Hunting and fishing will make food easier to come by in lower risk locations, but there's a time sink element to that (as well as an antisocial element).

 

In the end it mostly depends on what server you're on. Also loot tables and locations seem to be updated every so often so these things change a lot.

[Katana67 2907]

Absolutely.

 

Just on the food discussion, canned/fresh food needs to be far, far, far rarer than it is now when they get around to balancing the loot.

 

Hunting and foraging should be the primary mode of keeping yourself fed/hydrated. Nobody will hunt if they can just storm into a grocery store and snag five cans of perfectly pristine beans and feed themselves for days.

 

With regard to weapons. I think ammunition, overall, needs to be rarer. But DayZ is a game which has always centered on firearms. I don't want them being marginalized to the point where we're fighting with axes and bows 90% of the time. I do think, though, that weapons (at least decent ones) need not spawn on the coast.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Katana67

[TinUKCS 20]

Pretty much everything is easy to come by. It's been a long time since I got the "hungry" status in orange or worse... However, I don't think it's going to stay like that forever. When the devs get to the balancing stage, I think we will see the amount of loot per server dropped. Not to mention the amount of loot per player will drop when the 100-man servers go live (unless they increase the amount of loot).

[Death By Crowbar 1213]

With regard to weapons. I think ammunition, overall, needs to be rarer. But DayZ is a game which has always centered on firearms. I don't want them being marginalized to the point where we're fighting with axes and bows 90% of the time. I do think, though, that weapons (at least decent ones) need not spawn on the coast.

Ammo is a problem especially because of dupers. Until dupers are stopped imo ammo should spawn everywhere to even the odds for those who'd rather not cheat.

[Katana67 2907]

Ammo is a problem especially because of dupers. Until dupers are stopped imo ammo should spawn everywhere to even the odds for those who'd rather not cheat.

 

Well, I never found much merit in the argument that we need to modify an in-game system just to counterbalance the hackers/glitchers.

 

But yes, whatever makes people happy until that problem is fixed and they can finalize the ammunition distribution.

[LeChat 131]

I think the loot tables will be modified, as you said some things are just redundant at the moment because it's so hard to find the certain items you need to make them.

But for instance... prior to the current build on experimental in order to make a bag you had to find a burlap sack and a rope (and well not necessarily a stick but it helped) - now you can use the hide from animals instead of the burlap sack. They have also made it so that you can disassemble items you've made (at least some of them). So I guess further down the line makeshift or DIY items will be more common for the sole reason that they will be easier to procure.

[skypig 139]

I thought food was made more available for alpha so we could stay alive to play/test?

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

I thought food was made more available for alpha so we could stay alive to play/test?

shhhh, don't tell everyone  <_<

[skypig 139]

sorry.. didn't mean to say the A word lol

[pillock 850]

I haven't played for about a month, due to staying in temporary accommodation with a shit internet connection, but when I last did I never used to carry food or water ever. It was a waste of inventory space, given that you're never far from a town with a water pump, and canned food was everywhere.

 

But yeah, we're not testing loot balance yet, I don't think, so it doesn't matter. 

[retti 7]

Crafted backpack is the most camouflaged and low profile pack avail. As a pvp that's why I craft backpacks. Hunting packs are a placeholder till I get crafted one.

Food and drink are plentiful but even though I stay "healthy" 90% of the time for pvp readiness I often find myself having to go on food hunts because of prolonged periods of urban pvp where I'm not picking up or eating due to noise. As a fresh spawn trying to get back to my corpse or my friends to re gear I'm always pushing sickness because of the scarcity of food in rural areas and have even gone unconscious and died from it before.

Military bases and police stations should have weapons. That's obvious. Once m4s move to crash sites they won't be so prevalent. Bases take a lot of travel time.

[Murlough 192]

I would assume that the amount of guns and ammo we find will change drasticly after alpha ends. So that bows become a viable option and the survival will be tougher. When it comes to food id imagine pretty much the same. Also hoping for more zombies and weapons that don't ALWAYS one-shot but thats my opinion :).

[The Aquatic Land Walrus 565]

Protip: Make Hardcore hard, and leave Normal alone. I don't play for the difficulty. I play for the enjoyment of looting. So, I wouldn't know much about Hardcore. But, there is a bit too much food in normal. 25 minutes after a spawn, I had a .22 Sporter with 45 rounds (Shot a few zombies for giggles), a bag of rice, a box of cereal, "Healthy" status, and camo pants. I also had a pack. All on the coast of a 20 person server.

[Murlough 192]

Protip: Make Hardcore hard, and leave Normal alone. I don't play for the difficulty. I play for the enjoyment of looting. So, I wouldn't know much about Hardcore. But, there is a bit too much food in normal. 25 minutes after a spawn, I had a .22 Sporter with 45 rounds (Shot a few zombies for giggles), a bag of rice, a box of cereal, "Healthy" status, and camo pants. I also had a pack. All on the coast of a 20 person server.

"Hardcore" in this game doesn't refer to difficulty. It just won't let you play in third-person. Edited May 29, 2014 by Murlough

[Katana67 2907]

As to the "Hardcore" versus "Regular" discussion, I have several thoughts.

 

One, I'd rather the values of the game... meaning, the loot... the weapons... the damage... the experience... be the same across both. It should be unforgiving on both.

 

Two, if it's done in the traditional Hardcore/Core manner, you're essentially creating two communities with two different experiences, and two different assertions on what DayZ "should" be. It's the case in every game which has Hardcore (which I enjoy, and frequently play). But it's hard to say "I want this to be X" when it only applies to Hardcore.

 

Three, if we just leave the divide at 3PP vs. 1PP then we're minimizing the effect it will have in the long-term on the overall experience.

 

I sort of apply the same point of view when folks say "Well, just wait for private hives... or wait for the mods... they'll do construction, survival, weapons, X right!"

 

No, I'd rather they just do things right in the vanilla experience.

[randomspawn 215]

Here is a good question for the future. Should the game get so hard(rare food/drinks) that you are forced to hunt, and ammo is so scarce, that you are scared to hunt and waste ammo? Some people will love hunting, but I don't really want to spend 50% of the time hiding in the woods praying a deer happens to walk by. I also don't want to know the exact spawn locations of game animals, and easy mode to kill them. How much hunting is enough, and how much food should be in the cities. Right now, servers reset all the time, but with loot respawn in the future, if food/guns/ammo are really that rare, then will we both going into cities at all? 

Edited May 30, 2014 by randomspawn

[The Aquatic Land Walrus 565]

"Hardcore" in this game doesn't refer to difficulty. It just won't let you play in third-person.

Well, it should. It'd please the people who constantly say "UNFORGIVING OR GTFO".

[Whyherro123 2283]

In reality, food is the absolute least of your concerns in a survival situation. I've mentioned this before, but there is a "Rule of Threes" when it comes to survival that state the average person can go:
-3 minutes without air

-3 hours of exposure

-3 days without water

-3 weeks without food

 

before being seriously impaired. All of the kids (well, teenagers) in my survival class want to learn how to identify edible plants and trap animals for food. I have to explain to them multiple times that that is stuff you do AFTER you have all of the rest of the things you need done.

 

Exposure to weather and the environment should be the #1 cause of death amongst Day Z survivors. Right now, when I run in the rain, I think "damn, I'm getting wet. This is aggravating". It should be "SHIT, I'm getting wet! And the sun in going down! I don't even have a shelter and a fire set up! I need to do something and take these wet clothes off before hypothermia sets in!" I've actually developed hypothermia in the middle of a New England summer, from being out in a rain (setting up shit for my survival program, actually. hahaha). From the start of exposure to the point where I could't even walk on my own, or remove my wet clothing (shaking too bad), it was only about 2 hours. Therefore, everything should revolve around beating the weather, ESPECIALLY since it appears to be mid-Autumn in-game. Where I am from, mid-autumn (October/November-ish) can be relatively warm during the day, but once night falls, it gets COLD. Having a shelter should be priority Numero Uno. I've built shelters out of both natural materials and man-made ones, and obviously man-made (tarps, ponchos) are more effective, easier/faster to set up, and can be taken with you on the move, but natural (wood lean-tos, A-frames, leaf mounds, etc) can be just as effective, and can be combined with artificial materials easily. See this site (and many others) for some shelter ideas.http://www.fieldandstream.com/photos/gallery/survival/shelter/2006/10/seven-primitive-survival-shelters-could-save-your-life

After that, and related to it, should be fire. I prefer to have an adequate shelter set up before I worry about fire, as I can survive even a cold night comfortably without a fire if I've got a good enough shelter, while a fire is usually not enough to be comfortable. Comfort, believe me or not, is very important (at least, in my experience and opinion) in a survival situation, as the more "at-ease" (warm, dry, comfortable, etc) you are, the less stress you will experience. This is a VERY GOOD THING. There are many many many different fire lays (look them up), but I tend to try and build both a fire-wall and a drying place for wood. The fire-wall reflects heat back into the shelter, obviously warming it more efficiently and making the shelter/fire more efficient (by limiting excess heat from radiating away from you), while the wood drying place lets you dry wood (well, duh), which makes fire-building more effective, especially when you might be reliant of dead wood found on the ground, which has a tendency to soak up moisture from the forest floor. Building a fire with wet wood is possibly, but rather difficult (I train my class how to do it, and it usually takes them a while to get the skills) and conductive to stress.

 

Then, there is water. Now, there are a lot of ponds in Chernarus, so actually FINDING water should not be that difficult. Purifying it, on the other hand, should be a priority, as water-borne bacteria WILL kill you in varied and nasty ways. I tend to actually not carry water purification tabs with me a lot, as I prefer other methods (boiling, UV purification, filtration etc), but chemical treatment is the most "hands-off" way I know of. Other than the purification tabs, which are already in game, you could always boil water on your fire (actually, the bacteria in the water is already heat-killed by the time the water reaches boiling temp, but bringing it to a rolling boil just makes sure EVERYTHING is dead).

So, what does this mean for the game?

In summation: players should fear the rain. Players should fear the night, especially if they are wet. Tarps and pots should be of higher priority than beans and bullets, at least initially.

 

PS: Holy shitballs, that was a long post. You can tell I am really into survival!

[Katana67 2907]

In summation: players should fear the rain. Players should fear the night, especially if they are wet. Tarps and pots should be of higher priority than beans and bullets, at least initially.

 

Though I definitely appreciate your insight, it may not be practical from a standpoint of gameplay in having such a slanted survival requirement.

 

Though I do agree, I would like to see the environmental factors play a bigger role, I like the idea of having a relatively even (but overall, significant as you say) distribution of survival "requirements" (i.e. environmental, food, drink, health, etc.) in terms of severity. That way, it's sort of up to the player on how one manages these requirements, vice forcing people to pay attention to one more than another. In other words, it should be more varied by being more situational.

 

One life you might have to deal with a rainstorm as your biggest adversary. Another you might get dysentery. Another you might not be able to find food at all. I don't necessarily want to be dealing with the rain (or any one factor) 90% of the time whilst the other stuff is just tangential.

[hotcakes 348]

OP's post format really pissed me off.

[Whyherro123 2283]

Though I definitely appreciate your insight, it may not be practical from a standpoint of gameplay in having such a slanted survival requirement.

 

Though I do agree, I would like to see the environmental factors play a bigger role, I like the idea of having a relatively even (but overall, significant as you say) distribution of survival "requirements" (i.e. environmental, food, drink, health, etc.) in terms of severity. That way, it's sort of up to the player on how one manages these requirements, vice forcing people to pay attention to one more than another. In other words, it should be more varied by being more situational.

 

One life you might have to deal with a rainstorm as your biggest adversary. Another you might get dysentery. Another you might not be able to find food at all. I don't necessarily want to be dealing with the rain (or any one factor) 90% of the time whilst the other stuff is just tangential.

Yeah, true. I have trouble remembering this is "just a game" sometimes.

It just really doesn't make sense to me why people are so concerned about the amount of gear they can find, when there are other, possibly infinitely more important aspects of survival that could (and, in my opinion, should) be explored. There is more to survival than just gear, and the usage thereof. Skills, mindset, and environmental factors all play a major part. 

In other words, I want "survival" in Day Z to be more nuanced that just "find gear, survive, look for more gear". If you run around in the rain (without proper rain gear), you should get hypothermia (And that should be something that you consider before going outside). If you want to loot at night, you should have to deal with lower temperatures vs. during the day, with all that lower temperatures imply (shivering, hypothermia, etc) Heatstroke, dehydration should also be factors. If you don't want to take the time to treat your drinking water, water-borne pathogens should be in the back of your mind.

Survival is ultimately dependent on a risk/reward system. "If I do X, what are the risks of doing X, and what can I possibly get out of doing X?" 

[Chaingunfighter 917]

Absolutely.

 

Just on the food discussion, canned/fresh food needs to be far, far, far rarer than it is now when they get around to balancing the loot.

 

Hunting and foraging should be the primary mode of keeping yourself fed/hydrated. Nobody will hunt if they can just storm into a grocery store and snag five cans of perfectly pristine beans and feed themselves for days.

 

With regard to weapons. I think ammunition, overall, needs to be rarer. But DayZ is a game which has always centered on firearms. I don't want them being marginalized to the point where we're fighting with axes and bows 90% of the time. I do think, though, that weapons (at least decent ones) need not spawn on the coast.

I'm not sure, but I'll be using the ashwood bow a lot. It's so simple, but it just looks so damn badass.

[Katana67 2907]

I'm not sure, but I'll be using the ashwood bow a lot. It's so simple, but it just looks so damn badass.

 

The main use that I personally envision for melee weapons and bows, is mainly to do with the silent aspect.

 

To me, I'd like to see bows and melee weapons be the proverbial "poor man's suppressor." Meaning that, barring having found a hyper-rare suppressor for your firearm, melee weapons and bows should be the mainstay of neutralizing zombies silently.

 

Of course, should they ever implement something like "improvised suppressors" it'd throw a cog into the whole system, but yeah.

[Murlough 192]

Well, it should. It'd please the people who constantly say "UNFORGIVING OR GTFO".

I think it could use a name-change but not be harder. The current "hardcore" is doing exactly what it should: not allowing third-person. But yeah i guess they could add a harder difficulty feature for you extreme badasses out there.