Comparisons and impressions

[Marooney 2]

Hi, I bought SA few days ago..

 

..but short story long

Why I want to play survival; Some game comparisons; Why I think DayZ SA is/can be unique and not comparable. And after all.. my first impressions.

 

I like to play the games with my friends but since we are done with fc3 we are split to several games atm.

That's why I am looking for a common game that is more teamplay than BF3/BF4/FC.. where every player just tries the rambo mode over and over again.

 

All new  survival games are in early access atm..

I am a software developer so I really understand what early access / alpha means.

That simply means: If you want to compare with other games: Compare the supposed final state and not the current state. (Too many rash comparisons atm..)

So the difficult part is to figure out which features are supposed to be that way and which are placeholders and which are just buggy. And of course which features will be improved or added. So please do not punish me if i see things wrong.

 

At first to say about survival: It expects you to worry about your in-game life. After few death and respawns you realize it does not matter. After a few KOS you realize it makes no sense to worry at all.  :huh:

The only thing you are frustrated about is the time you spent and lost with a character or how easy it is to lose it because no one cares at all, or just about the stupid people.. Time is money. There are too many people out there who have too much time and the only money is their loot...  Yep, its like real life, except int real life people don't KOS.

 

People make the game, so every negative seeming point i state below does not matter as long as you got fun and nice experience especially with other people!

But only if the the game supports and rewards interaction and the more things to do with others the more and longer will be the fun..

But keep in mind, fun is probably based on others frustration.. Like in most of the games.. (Spawn camping and so on)

 

So here are the general differences between the survival games that I have evaluated (by many vids and some tested).. as far as I can tell atm. Plz tell me if I am wrong.

If alone or in a group i think it makes not that difference in my listing below. Of course I can not include the fun with buddies so this seems more abstract now. 

 

Rust (tested):

I really like the shooter gameplay in your own and other bases. You can design your own close quarter shooter base to your advantage

Crafting is great, but gameplay feels not that deep atm and I am not sure if all the planed improvements will change this at all:

1. Survive and gather:

100% survival (gather food, build shelter, run or die)

2. Life and loot:

20% survival (got base, got tons of food, bad animals are no problem)

40% loot cool stuff you do not need for survival but is useful for pvp

20% defensive pvp - defend base (got little bit of good stuff for others. or defend just for fun raids)

20% offensive pvp - attack bases (get good stuff from others, or just for fun raids)

3. PVP:

0% survival. after little bit of pvp experience you just manage your respawn places. (food is still in da house)

40% base improvements - pvp survival.

40% defensive pvp - you did a nice job to gather loot that seems to be more useful to other players than to you. Or other do not know what to do else.

20% offensive pvp - you take revenge, or want to get more loot just to have more, or nothing else to do.

4. Lost and/or done everything:

You got tons of loot you do not need.

You lost tons of loot you never needed.

 

Arma2 DayZ mod (watched many youtube vids) 

Because of Arma 2 as base the mod is more detailed/focused in war behavior.

But since you can not carry that much stuff you have to take care about finding food and water all the time.

 

1. Survive and loot:

100% survival (find food/water and default equipment, stabilize yourself, avoid zombies and beware of players)

2. Gear up:

40% survival (find food/water, first aid, ..., avoid enemies, find friends.. risk it now than later)

60% loot gear (upgrade to have a chance in pvp)

3. Hero or Bandit

10% survival (find food/water, first aid, ...)

20% gear

70% pvp - look for players. Help other players. Roleplay, torture or what ever.

4. Base building:

and so on..

 

DayZ standalone

Since arma 2 is an older game and standalone is about to be more flexible and more in depth in survival, i decided to give SA a try.

SA is more detailed in survival behavior like finding the can opener to open a can without loosing content. Hunting, fishing, and so on will be introduced too.

 

To keep it short, it seems similar to the mod but the survival aspect is more complex and detailed than in the mod.

SA => No Arma features.. the whole war stuff (weapons, vehicles, helicopters,..) has to be implemented step by step as far as they have planed to.

Therefore the player focus will be at least 50% survival and 50% pvp?

 

People love to express them self by the character. Simply: If you find clothing.. you like it or not. 

No base building atm:

Building a base would be a visible group success. But in other hand you have to stick to one place or you will lose your base.

Maybe some custom small camps with a safe would be nice. Structures will be damaged and removed (garbage collected) over time if not maintained.

 

Arma 3 Breaking Point

Port from Arma 2 DayZ mod.

The fact that they have introduced a new class system for characters and a team/pvp reward system shows the focus on player interaction.

I like that too.

 

 

Summary:

So actually if you are more about playing hero and kill bandits i think you would be annoyed by such details like opening cans or care about blood types..

(Different example: Arma 3 Altis Life video -> Nice Bank robbery roleplay with funny acting robbers and police men.. One suddenly and without any warning dies while arresting the robber.. dehydrated.. Funny, but does this fit?)

You spend your time in player-interactions and roleplaying and so on and got hit by stupid survival basics with lack of body feedback? really?

 

In the other hand, if you want more survival you would be annoyed by people they just don't care about your life and KOS.

You do not want to spent your whole time to survive just to trash all for one person that is not able to interact or do at least some funny entertaining roleplay that leads to your death or not.

It is real life?.. but not mine. And in real life you don't bother anymore when you are dead..

 

I like both ways.. pvp and survival but I think it is not that easy to mix both in full depth without wasting time in both ways. Spending time to find a can opener for better survival does not make sense when you are about to go into a battle where you want to get reward points but get killed.

Or if succeed a hard battle it does not make sense at all that you just die because you can not open a can just by smashing it onto the ground..

There is no time for unreal reality in the game just to prepare for respawn  ;)

 

I like hero vs bandits and since i know that "plain detailed complex survival" and "heroes vs bandits" does not work for me in one game, i perhaps will play the Breaking Point mod as well  :)

 

And now my first DayZ SA impressions.

Great game and i think it tends to be one of the best survival games when they keep pushing survival by environment rather than killing people.

 

Me as an  :emptycan: :

After hitting some zombies over and over again i figured out that their blood is nothing more than animation and that they are immune to certain weapons even when they where knocked out few times..

I know how to strafe and kill zombies. But lost to much blood on glitching zombies (10m away and hitting) and did not know how to recover. I tried and felt good but did not know that i could feel better.

Sorry but it looks like on purpose and it seems this is defended by many players - Keep the UI free and let the player know how he feels just by the effects and not by brain feedback displayed as bars.

 

In real life I can tell how hydrated I am and how hungry I am and how i feel on a scale from 1 to 10. (And i even know if i feel weak on blood when i close my eyes and do not see any color at all  ;)). In real life you need to know how much energy you have else you could not ration your stamina at sport activities.

But in the game i have got some kind of pager and the status from ?? to ?? in.. in my inventory? I do not see the real life behavior in this.

If something starts to get better it should be visible how fast something makes you feel better.. just to compare things and so on.

(Check out The Forest game, nice food, stamina and energy handling)

 

Because..

I was just eating until not complaining.

I was just drinking until not complaining.

After i thought i am fine all the time,..

I was surprised that i can be energized.

After a while..

I was surprised that i can be hydrated.

And then..

I was surprised that i can be healing.  :lol:

 

Yes it is playable without status bars and yes the game likes to be real. But no measurable brain feedback (status bars with min max) just makes me feel like a zombie and that is far away from reality  :rolleyes:

 

I am still not sure if healed means I am fine. Or if i still could have some more blood. My screen looks fine but i do not trust my in-game body anymore.

With blood i read this and that, you get blood only by blood bag? Makes no sense at all or at least no sense for the person who gives it to you. Just forces pvp to rob peoples blood until they are dead  ;) Yep i will find out. But the thing is, do i really need to ask people how my body works?

 

Anyways... I play on low populated servers just to learn the game and figure out if I want to stick to survival.. So actually in the 3 days i only heard some shooting somewhere..

My problem now is, i got everything i wanted to have.. Inventory is full of  First Aid Kits ready to help some people. But I don't want to loose all of this to a stupid KOS player    :lol:

 

I am looking forward tho the new patch 

hf