Changes i would like to see

[Ginger Beard 0]

Here are some changes i would like to see in the near future. I realise this is alpha and it will take time to do these things. Sorry about the wall of text guys but please read it, i believe these points are important and need to atleast be considered.

I would like this game to be about survival, but i want it to be more than the survival of the individual, it must be about the survival of humanity. This means we need to somehow get players to work together. Sure you can team up with people you know but then it just feels like a coop game like left 4 dead. Thats not what this should be about. It should be random people banding together for the greater good.

However we do still need players out there that do shoot on site otherwise it would get boring fast. Although i would also like an increase in those rare moments where you are shouting at each other down the mic to put your gun down (very tense).

Now it seems players kill on site these days because they are frightened of loosing there well earned loot. Which to be fair is a legit reason to shoot on site. However it is unrealistic that everyone does this. So we need to fix this. I suggest we fix this by:

1. Logical loot spawns.

By this i mean not having items spawn in the weirdest of places. For instance, ghillie suit in a superstore? Millitary weapons in a deer stand? Correct me if im wrong but arnt dear stands for hunting animals? In a country like chernarus the hunters would have hunting rifles and double barrel shotguns. So the deer stands should only spawn Hunting rifle, double barrel shotgun, crossbows, ammo for these guns, very very rare chance of a map or compass (no millitary weapons what so ever.

Millitary weapons must only spawn in a millitary area. (no where else!) They must also still be pretty rare even in these areas and must be harder to obtain (more zombies in the airfields).

Also pistol spawns seem ok at the moment, maybe a little tweaking to lower the spawns a little. Lee enfield? get rid...it doesnt make sense. Or maybe replace with a mosin nagant.

I think you get the picture. This will then keep most players using the not so good guns and hopefully in some small way help to get them to band together. Because they cant defend themselves as well on their own. Obviously this wont magicaly fix the problem. There needs to be more.

2. No matter what some of the community are saying, no matter how much they moan. Please for the love of god keep the no weapon on spawn. I actualy realy enjoy sneaking around and have that sense of danger with no way to defend my self. All i can do is run, hide and distract untill i find something. However melee needs to start becoming much more common. Also im kind of leaning towards no backpack on spawn too.

Iv already seen players band together because they have no weapon, so this is clearly a step in the right direction. If we can keep them together for long enough with no weapon or crappy weapons then that is longer to form bonds and work together even after they find a decent weapon and good gear.

3. Not only do i want firearms to be scarce, i also want ammo to be scarce. Make every shot count. Obviously some ammo would be more rare than others. I want almost every player at some point to be like this "damn run out of ammo, better use my crowbar" or baseball bat or whatever they have.

With weapons scarce many people would work together for protection. If they get good gear then they can decide to go off on their own and shoot on site. Or just stay on their own the whole time. But remember the entire world is filled with the infected, being alone is not desirble.

I want to see huge groups of surivors together. Maybe a group of 6 for example. all randomers. 4 have melee weapons because they cant find anything else, 1 has a pistol with 1 mag and another has a double barreld shotgun with 4 shells. The guys with the guns need to decide when to use them. It would just give a much more realistic feel to the game.

When i first started, it was dark. I grouped together with 8 others (cant remember where as i was new to the map) all of us were random, one was even a bandit. We all worked together and it was one of the best experiances i have had in the game. Now i dont know why but at some point over the next 2 weeks the community changed. Everyone shoots on site. I realy dont know why it suddenly changed, but i want it to feel like it was before again.

I remember when i saw and got my first weapon other than the makarov, it was great. I felt i achieved something, then of course i found out the winchester was common as muck.... suddenly its not so much of an achievment and i can do this every time i spawn. Then i found my first AKM. Omfg i thought to myself, i had 1 full mag and thought i should be careful with this the ammo could go fast. It did. I was a noob and wasted it on a horde of zombies that i stupidly attracted. Then i found out after i died how easy it was to get ammo for that gun. Dayz just isnt the same anymore now that i know where to find these things. But my points further up the page should hopefully fix that.

What do you guys think?

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

1. Logical loot

2. No starting weapon

3. Ammo more scarce

I agree with all three of those. That was a HUGE wall of text tho.

I think the new arma2 beta fixes will help with #3. We've got bullet tracking in next DayZ update. So, no more keeping rounds in your mag and reconnecting with a full mag exploit.

[Ginger Beard 0]

It was a huge wall of text i know. But it had to be said. Would be nice if more people commented though. 80 views and 2 posts....wow. Come on guys lets get a discussion going.

[DevilDog (DayZ) 455]

I like the thought process but not all "military" weapons are "military". The only things that I don't have are the full auto ones, and I could actually have them if I had the money (depending on state). Who is to say that I would not go hunting with a DMR? It is a great .308 rifle, no reason not to hunt with it.

As for the scarecety of ammo thing. I am all for melee combat, but at the end of the day this is a FPS game and not having a bunch of guns would be kind of silly. If there were more melee weapons and it was a little easier to use them then I think you would have more people take part in melee combat. (At least add the knife and e-tool).

[Ginger Beard 0]

Except its not realy fps anymore. The mod changed that. Besides all we need is to test it and see how it goes. All these points were to help promote teamwork and make the game more realistic. Fair enough about the DMR though but i think those guns should have a very rare chance of spawning.

[johan (DayZ) 21]

More melee weapons would be quite great, tbh. I really don't like to use guns since they're so loud. A hatchet is my weapon of choice against zombies and against players... Well. I don't tend to fight players that much unless they find me first (I usually just hide and start to pray, heh) so apart from the G17 I usually don't use weapons much; flashlight means you can walk around solo during nighttime while being able to easily protect yourself against zombies. All in all I'd say ammo reduction could lessen the PvP a bit, I guess, but in reality people play how they want to play most of the time. Some people just prefer to play the game in smaller groups of friends, rather than with people they meet in the game.

Now I know, you want to allow people to meet up in game and play together but then you need to ask yourself how exactly you're going to get this working. It's not neccecarily about people having or not having ammo, people won't neccecarily automatically trust each other just because you modify the game with such things as less ammunition, it might just up the will to compete and betray (an axe to the back of the head hurts) over the first gun find.

There's also no social constructs that help players work together in game. There's the out of game forums, chats, etc. and adding in-game tools (chat rooms in game, groups, etc.) will harm the realism that some people enjoy by just wanting direct chat. Cross-servers doesn't help either since you can just join any server you like after mowing down a group of people so it doesn't matter as much if you are branded as a bandit on one out of 100 servers.

At the end of the day if people kill each other it's either because it's easy and a safer alternative due to lacking "proper" comms or having no reason not to (server argument). Other than that I wonder how exactly you envision people to play the game, they are playing it in "survivor mode" now, aren't they? If you up the challenge will these players automatically start joining up with others or will they just take it as another challenge for their group to overcome? In the end it's all about what you want to achieve by doing this and taking into account that many players might not want to band together/merge their groups unless they are forced to, at which point the question we end up with is by what right do we force them to?

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You can always test different changes, though, since I do agree that certain ammo types are a bit common in places. But like you said I like the pistol spawn rates atm (had many trips to Cherno and v few pistols.)

[Ginger Beard 0]

The thought process behind this was that by making proper weapons hard to find players were more likely to band together for protection. This would then give them time to form some trust for each other. Its not going to work 100% of the time but thats the point. Im not trying to force all players to cooperate. I would just like there to be a balance between pvp and coop. Right now its 98% pvp and i very much doubt its out of choice. Its because no one has chance to form bonds and end up having great gear realy fast and so they are reluctant to trust in fear of losing it.

Alow the players to form bonds, problem solved.

[johan (DayZ) 21]

I know what you mean and yes, limiting weaponry might help a bit, but it might also make it harder for new people to compete with already established groups who might want to keep their dominance. Then again with pistols being quite common I guess it might balance out. 3x pistols > 1 lee.

Just as long as we don't have people who have guns and people who keep getting killed, wielding only hatchets. :)

[Ginger Beard 0]

Well to get around the already established players i suggest we wipe all existing players to properly test the mechanics. I know alot of people will hate that but to be honest this is still alpha. If they are not willing to test new stuff then get the hell out of here. Besides everyone loses there gear at some point. Iv come to accept that gear is not permanent.