Six Upcoming Developments That Will Change DayZ for the Better - Loot Rarity (wait, whaat?)

[gibonez 3633]

 

 

If you haven't played a game that has really rare (and by really rare I mean spending hours a day, everyday, for months of your life camping a boss to ensure you are the ONLY person to kill it to get the 0.01% chance the loot might drop) then you don't understand. Enjoyment comes using good gear. It doesn't come from living in fear of loosing something you worked so hard for and will never have again. The negative psychological impact this change could cause is huge.

 

See thats exactly where the fun comes from in dayz.

 

The fun is the ever lasting paranoia the fear that strikes players when they all of a sudden see another player. Their heart sinks and they are instantly full of adrenaline.

 

This is what dayz is and having finite resources and ultra rare items in the game helps increase this.

[theirongiant 200]

I wouldn't mind it implemented for a select group of ultra rare items but I'd rather see them do something a little more dynamic like for a couple of weeks cut ammo, food, drink or medical supplies right back, force people to react to changing circumstances (without announcing it). One of the most interesting 'meta' incidents in DayZ's history was the bean wars when food wasn't spawning and everyone had to adapt to it. It'd keep everyone on their toes.

[Jesterarts 85]

Yeah, a limited number of items across ALL servers is a worry as it does literally promote server hopping and breaks down the immersiveness of the game.

Limiting the objects on the server and only replacing it once it's destroyed seems a bit better. Then people will be more likely to stick to a server as the items won't carry across, but there is the issue of someone joining a server, finding all the high end items and then deciding they are done with the game.

Maybe a system where is a player is holding items on a server and they are inactive for a period of time, the items start to lose condition and eventually are ruined and respawn.

Quite a complex issue once you scratch below the surface.

[Siberian (DayZ) 527]

yet another horrific design decision by the delusional dean and his merry band of lousy developers. "lets make server hopping to farm items a requirement because, yanno, rather then deal with it were going to completely stop items spawning at X number.

 

Idiocy

lunacy

 

glad i uninstalled. only hope is Private hives now. goodbye standalone you are well and truly dead to me forever. no feature can redeem this. not a single one.

sadly my fire for SA is gone to...it seems to be heading off on some weird tangent thats so far from SA was supposed to be i dotn even recognize it anymore..

[Chaingunfighter 917]

100 of anything across MILLIONS OF PLAYERS? how does that make any sense? that means hundreds of thousands, if not MILLIONS, will never get to test out all the gear! thats ridiculous! if they are serious about this, private servers are the only hope we have left.

Sure, you might not get to see it right away, but I doubt they're going to be limiting it to only 10 items during the testing phase. It will probably be significantly higher than that, it's just exaggerated pointing out that farming items will be much more difficult considering eventually they'll stop spawning and you'll have to go around and kill people.

 

Also, private hives? I doubt loot limits will apply to custom servers, as much as I hate the "1,000 cars & helis, spawn with full gear" types of servers, I don't think restricting people from playing them is the right thing to do. Plus, many of the fun mods had different loot restrictions that weren't necessarily just maxing out spawning of everything, but made junk loot for instance spawn everywhere and weapons spawn almost nowhere.

And mods like Battle Royale had changes to loot spawns, but were absolutely awesome to play with, especially considering the huge map and all of DayZ's game factors. I actually felt extremely immersed playing those types of matches, because even though there was plenty of loot and stuff, you had to be the first to grab it, and could never be sure if you would run into someone. Also, in the end, only one person was allowed to live, regardless of alliances.

[coltonlong 211]

I wouldn't mind it implemented for a select group of ultra rare items but I'd rather see them do something a little more dynamic like for a couple of weeks cut ammo, food, drink or medical supplies right back, force people to react to changing circumstances (without announcing it). One of the most interesting 'meta' incidents in DayZ's history was the bean wars when food wasn't spawning and everyone had to adapt to it. It'd keep everyone on their toes.

THAT i wouldnt mind.

[trev186 389]

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/six-upcoming-developments-that-will-change-dayz-for-the-better/1100-6420740/

 

GLOBAL LOOT RARITY

Once the loot spawning system has been fixed, Hall plans to revolutionise the loot economy itself by making loot persistent across every single server in the entire world. This allows the team to control the rarity of individual items not just per server, but for every single player no matter where they live.

"We'll say there can only be, for example, a hundred night-vision goggles in the whole world across all servers," Hall explains. "Then, once your character dies, or that item gets destroyed, it makes a new one available to spawn on a server."

The rarity of an item will be defined by its function. Specialist military gear, such as night-vision goggles, logically wouldn't be found as often as a can of baked beans. Hall wants players to hear rumours that a particular player on a particular server has found some of this specialist gear, which could lead to a kind of lore and reputation building up around such servers. And if you are the person who has found such an item, you'll start playing differently to hold onto it for as long as possible.

"What we'd see is, particularly when we get into vehicles, or components for helicopters that are very rare and are controlled centrally so there can only be a certain amount of helicopters in every server in the whole world, that would mean that if you hear there's a working helicopter on a particular server, you'll want to go to that server," he adds.

Hall predicts that the team will need to add a new server cluster dedicated to controlling this persistent loot economy. But the introduction of extreme rarity and the reputation surrounding players with such items is an important step toward adding more opportunities for emergent storytelling to take place.

The team also discussed methods of bringing the notion of changing servers into the gameworld itself, such as walking to the edge of the map loading you into a new server on the other side. "But obviously we need to make a lot of maps for that, and it takes many years because they're huge, hand-made maps," says Hall. "We talked about procedural generation, but it was going to be so much effort that, before we looked at that, we needed to do all our architectural work first."

 

Ok, maybe someone can explain how exactly this reputation from another server helps "emergent storrytelling"? What storytelling is he talking about? Because the only thing I see is even more motivation for server hopping - which is already a big problem that is NOT being solved in its roots.

Why should there be economy between servers? In Rust or 7 Days to Die you cannot bring your loot to another server. You change server, you start with nothing, no server hopping for loot, everyone is happy. Is it not a viable solution for DayZ? Why?

 

What if someone gets a hold on night vision goggles and goes offline? What if he dies in the woods under a bush? Will that pair of goggles remain with him forever and not spawn on this or any other server again until he goes online and gets killed? What is the logic behind this? If we have abundant respawning food and ammo, appearing just out of nowhere (which already means no realistic economy), why should night goggles get limited this way? Or maybe Rocket wants players to server hop even more in search of rare items? Is it a game about server hopping for rare items?

 

I prefer the central hive cause servers get shut down over time and you have to start over.

[Deathlove 2286]

[MarchHare 184]

People still play this shit ass game???

 

Thats crazy.  Worst Dev team in history.

 

With Arma III Epoch right around the corner and regular Arma II Epoch still going strong I honestly dont see any point in playing SA which stands for SUCKS ASS by the way 

Try not to get troll juice on the door on your way out.

[trev186 389]

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/six-upcoming-developments-that-will-change-dayz-for-the-better/1100-6420740/

 

GLOBAL LOOT RARITY

Once the loot spawning system has been fixed, Hall plans to revolutionise the loot economy itself by making loot persistent across every single server in the entire world. This allows the team to control the rarity of individual items not just per server, but for every single player no matter where they live.

"We'll say there can only be, for example, a hundred night-vision goggles in the whole world across all servers," Hall explains. "Then, once your character dies, or that item gets destroyed, it makes a new one available to spawn on a server."

The rarity of an item will be defined by its function. Specialist military gear, such as night-vision goggles, logically wouldn't be found as often as a can of baked beans. Hall wants players to hear rumours that a particular player on a particular server has found some of this specialist gear, which could lead to a kind of lore and reputation building up around such servers. And if you are the person who has found such an item, you'll start playing differently to hold onto it for as long as possible.

"What we'd see is, particularly when we get into vehicles, or components for helicopters that are very rare and are controlled centrally so there can only be a certain amount of helicopters in every server in the whole world, that would mean that if you hear there's a working helicopter on a particular server, you'll want to go to that server," he adds.

Hall predicts that the team will need to add a new server cluster dedicated to controlling this persistent loot economy. But the introduction of extreme rarity and the reputation surrounding players with such items is an important step toward adding more opportunities for emergent storytelling to take place.

The team also discussed methods of bringing the notion of changing servers into the gameworld itself, such as walking to the edge of the map loading you into a new server on the other side. "But obviously we need to make a lot of maps for that, and it takes many years because they're huge, hand-made maps," says Hall. "We talked about procedural generation, but it was going to be so much effort that, before we looked at that, we needed to do all our architectural work first."

 

Ok, maybe someone can explain how exactly this reputation from another server helps "emergent storrytelling"? What storytelling is he talking about? Because the only thing I see is even more motivation for server hopping - which is already a big problem that is NOT being solved in its roots.

Why should there be economy between servers? In Rust or 7 Days to Die you cannot bring your loot to another server. You change server, you start with nothing, no server hopping for loot, everyone is happy. Is it not a viable solution for DayZ? Why?

 

What if someone gets a hold on night vision goggles and goes offline? What if he dies in the woods under a bush? Will that pair of goggles remain with him forever and not spawn on this or any other server again until he goes online and gets killed? What is the logic behind this? If we have abundant respawning food and ammo, appearing just out of nowhere (which already means no realistic economy), why should night goggles get limited this way? Or maybe Rocket wants players to server hop even more in search of rare items? Is it a game about server hopping for rare items?

 

 

Everyone has night vision goggles...it is called Gamma/Brightness increase....Sure people will call it an exploit and I also once refused to use it...but after trying to take the high road and then watching my friend get sniped by some guy (we had 0 lights on and could barely see two feet in front of us) I turned up gamma and brightness to max to find out I could see clear as day it was just black/white.

 

So my thought on rarity with NVG will just mean everyone who doesn't have them will just gamma up or not play at nighttime which will just mean these 12 saps with NVGs are running around without a proper helmet on for protection.

 

Flame on all you want about the exploit but they have made the game unreasonably dark at night all awhile making it super easy to bypass the whole obstacle. At first I was thrilled for the challenge of playing at night but that was short lived.

[alsmir 255]

I've played on a private server (mod) where admins have the similar idea.

 

For example: 1 .50 cal only

What happens: People eventually find out who owns it.

.50 cal owner is offline - server half empty

.50 cal owner logs in only when all of his squadmates can play with him.

10-30 mins later 20 more people log in to hunt him down. He realizes that most of the server is looking for him. Log out.

Few minutes later. Server half empty.

 

Fun!

[pilgrim* 3514]

I've played on a private server (mod) where admins have the similar idea.

 

So its a private server - and the main users only log in when this one special guy logs in ?

And every time the users log in this one guy logs out ?

And so the users log out and wait for the special guy to log in again ?

 

so what do these private server members all do with their lives ? stay logged out all the time and watch the player list ?

nobody ever plays, right ?

Edited July 2, 2014 by pilgrim

[xalienax 621]

So its a private server - and the main users only log in when this one special guy logs in ?

And every time the users log in this one guy logs out ?

 

so what do these private server members all do with their lives ? stay logged out all the time and watch the player list ?

nobody ever plays, right ?

the point is this system will mean that the onyl way to keep players intrested is to hoarde "rare items" on your server. any server with known clan bases containing said items will shoot to the top of the list and be packed. untill all items are stolen and taken to other servers. then server dies because no one there can get thier precious rare goodies. face it your position in this game and the value of your life is directly related to your gear. from the time most people spawn 90% of thier gameplay decisions are based around getting the "best" GEAR.

 

this will do nothing to allieviate any issues and only serve as one more nail in the coffin of a rapidly dieing game that has no right to share the name of its predecessor (the mod). this isn't an 'ALPHA' issue either. this is a fundamental gameplay DESIGN DECISION that shows me they have zero intrest in continuing the gameplay styles of the mod. im confident now that when this game finally goes to release it will truly be a moshpit mess of roket's diluded "visions".

Edited July 2, 2014 by Sovetsky

[pilgrim* 3514]

..//..

this is a fundamental gameplay DESIGN DECISION that shows me they have zero intrest in continuing the gameplay styles of the mod. im confident now that when this game finally goes to release it will truly be a moshpit mess of roket's diluded "visions".

 

didn't you say yesterday that you uninstalled and you Dont Play this game anymore ?

you just come to the forum to smack talk about a game you don't play ?

 

there is ArmA and the DayZ Mod you can still play, instead of wasting your time and your venom here ?

cool out, dude

Edited July 2, 2014 by pilgrim

[darkgritty 9]

I'm not against rarity control, I'm against loot being transfered between servers. It sucks. It is unrealistic. It is not about survival. It is bad already and it can become worse with the new global rarity system, which will promote server hopping. And that 'emerging storytelling' idea sounds like bad excuse and mindless bullshit.

 

DayZ storytelling was never about changing servers for rare loot.

Edited July 2, 2014 by darkgritty

[pilgrim* 3514]

I'm not against rarity control, I'm against loot being transfered between servers. It sucks. It is unrealistic. It is not about survival. It is bad already and it can become worse with the new global rarity system, which will promote server hopping. And that 'emerging storytelling' idea sounds like bad excuse and mindless bullshit.

 

DayZ storytelling was never about changing servers for rare loot.

 

My view here is that Rocket is thinking outside the box

Sometimes in the past he has come up with very good stuff, doing just that. As we know.

 

I guess the ideas he expresses, as a future for DayZ,  are pretty long term considerations - a first shaping of a long term possibility that DayZ might work towards. Even if implemented along the lines he sketches out, you could expect the practical structure to change and be considerably refined along the way.

 

This interview shows that he, and the team, have already taken on board two player concerns, and are turning over their thoughts about these areas of gameplay

 

1 ) the idea of bigger maps, more players sharing one game space, the idea of moving through the edge of one map to reach another map. So here he's suggesting that several servers could be linked in some way

2 ) A more direct relation between servers gives (and enhances) the possibility of addressing another issue, which is loot control and rarity. So, centralized spawn control, a way of controling rarity,  could fit together quite well with the 'more players sharing game space' idea, and this could make for new gameplay

 

Given that his ideas are a first projection, and he is considering how these kinds of ideas would affect the player experience, he comes up with some player possibilities that gamers might like in the game. As I said, he has proved good at this - thinking outside the box - in the past. right ?

 

Instead of each server being isolated, the total game enclosed in itself - how about extended maps covering several servers, which could also solve the player limit per server without going to expensive mega-servers to run a massive multiuser game. This is an interesting idea. As a possibility, a proposal and a basis for thought and research - I like that a lot

 

Central loot control is a way to stabilise spawn and share equipment in a sane way, to enable a much greater variety of loot and at the same time avoid endless 'useless' spawning, where each player can not find stuff useful to him. So that's another proposal, worth research and experimentation. It would enable "very rare" items to exist and to be genuinely 'very rare' out of the control (or misuse) of server restarts. It is a second aspect of play that many players have commented on.

 

So given these two ideas.. what changes in the long run ? Firstly players have to get used to the idea of extended game space. Say an item spawns "here" in your play area, but "here" is no longer one server because the map is extended over two or more servers. So you can no longer say 'this is "my" game server where I play '.. now it is only part of your play area, or, put it another way,  your server is shared with users on "other" servers who walk across the map into "yours". And you walk across an extended map which is - in part - on "theirs". Now the bigger map is "ours".

 

That's a difference of attitude straight away. If loot is centralised, and some objects are very rare.. it might be that the object does not spawn on "our" physical server today. If players accept that they are part of a wide community, and that cross-border movement is normal.. and even logging into another server is "normal", then it will be normal for players to wander through the DayZ commuity on a quest for various objects.. as Rocket says "hearing rumors" asking other 'strange' players, following leads.

 

Its not a question of "our loot"/"their loot" - you have to see the IDEA of a lot of DayZ servers as being the equivalent of one (or several) massive multiuser servers containing a large part of the community -  we are 100s of players, no longer <40 players.

 

Given that this "visionary" overview is a long term projection of something that might happen.. a possibility that will be considered and worked out bit by bit towards a practical change in structure, however that finally presents itself in the (very) distant development progression - I don't see why players gut-react so conservatively - because, more than changing the game, it is a player attitude that must gradually alter, for any of Rocket's ideas to make sense. But IF those ideas WERE already in place, new players coming in to the game would LOVE them..

 

I'm amazed Apha players are so leery of suggested or proposed change, even a first tabling of a long term overview, and so slow to digest "outside the box" thoughts. Maybe by next year we players will have had time to think about it and see what are the real advantages, and what could require modification in the long term. If eventually implemented or not, this is "vision" in the positive sense. In other games studios devs will have noticed, they will already be on it.

 

I think this looks promising and new.

let's not all freak out just at the moment.

 

xx

Edited July 2, 2014 by pilgrim

[scriptfactory 620]

I'm not against rarity control, I'm against loot being transfered between servers. It sucks. It is unrealistic. It is not about survival. It is bad already and it can become worse with the new global rarity system, which will promote server hopping. And that 'emerging storytelling' idea sounds like bad excuse and mindless bullshit.

 

DayZ storytelling was never about changing servers for rare loot.

 

Cross-server clan battles are a part of the game design.

Also, I don't see the servers being able to handle more than 100-150 players max. Allowing items to be transferred cross-server is an easy way to give the game an "MMO feel" with these limited server populations.

[Doookie 0]

Why not have rare loot spawning on zombies too,so you can be on any  server killing zombies knowing that there is a chance of rare loot on them.... the military zombies having a rare chance of finding military weapons etc? make them harder to kill or have them hit harder than other zombies.. problem solved..

 

people like group fights too.. maybe super zombies (rare) maybe 1 or 2 across the map that take more than 1 or 2 people to kill.. this will force team work

Edited July 2, 2014 by Doookie

[agentneo 337]

Cross-server clan battles are a part of the game design.

Also, I don't see the servers being able to handle more than 100-150 players max. Allowing items to be transferred cross-server is an easy way to give the game an "MMO feel" with these limited server populations.

Not on chernarus for me i think that would make it too populated and not seem 'apocalypse' / but eventually they might allow user ported maps like in the mod, there are some very large maps in epoch, also arma 3 altis is my favourite map, could probably handle 150.

[darkgritty 9]

Cross-server clan battles are a part of the game design.

Also, I don't see the servers being able to handle more than 100-150 players max. Allowing items to be transferred cross-server is an easy way to give the game an "MMO feel" with these limited server populations.

 

lolwhat? I've never heard about DayZ as 'cross-server clan battles' game. Can you please link some official statement about this? The only thing I heard of is clan bases, but it has nothing to do with cross-server battles. I always thought that DyZ is about survival social experiment, not some Battlefield with rare milweapons farming and assaulting clan bases on other servers.

Edited July 2, 2014 by darkgritty

[xalienax 621]

didn't you say yesterday that you uninstalled and you Dont Play this game anymore ?

you just come to the forum to smack talk about a game you don't play ?

 

there is ArmA and the DayZ Mod you can still play, instead of wasting your time and your venom here ?

cool out, dude

That's not going to stop me from pushing and promoting a direction that will return us to the mods gameplay with minor imporvements. Just because i dispise and revile the curent iteration and choices made by the devs doesnt NOT mean i should go sit quietly in the corner and let it get worse and worse.

[agentneo 337]

I thought about this some more last night and I think they will have to consider actually patching both systems into the game. Because they do plan to have private hives, and servers with passwords.

they are going to need a system for those (which i seem to prefer, even though I haven't tried the new concept) and a system for the connected hive. I think this would potentially work with weapons and rare vehicle repair items (for chopper not for car parts)

 

As for full vehicles spawns, i hope they aren't limited this way. In my view each server should have an average number of vehicles to start with and not like only 100 jeeps across the whole hive!.,something like 20 bicycles/motorbikes, 10 cars/ trucks, 2 or 3 urals, and 1 or 2 helicopters . Per every server. I would think one little bird and one big heli would be fine for this map to begin with...Similar to the way breaking point do it. They have a good vehicle spawning system which keeps the same amount per server.

Edited July 2, 2014 by AgentNe0

[smoq2 221]

That's not going to stop me from pushing and promoting a direction that will return us to the mods gameplay with minor imporvements. Just because i dispise and revile the curent iteration and choices made by the devs doesnt NOT mean i should go sit quietly in the corner and let it get worse and worse.

 

I haven't played the mod and I still see the whole "hive" approach as a messed up idea. From what I read about it though, the mod faired quite well without it, hence I think it's a needless addition, which just added a window for all of the "exploits" we now have.

 

I still feel that the fact of Rocket himself promoting metagaming is atrocious. It turns DayZ to a powergaming competition instead of an immersive game.

 

"(...) steal someone else's (item) from a server that we know about." (Dean Hall, Rezzed 2014 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es42HrtPB3I&t=26m20s)

 

How does that even sound? I already can see a wiki-style server list on DayZ DB with clan bases where top tier gear in suppose to be. How does that count as an immersive gameplay?

 

[EDIT]

 

I don't care if I never find those NVGs or SVDs. I though DayZ aims to be THE game that feels real. If they continue (an they will) that route, it will be just a game and nothing more.

Edited July 2, 2014 by retro19

[alsmir 255]

So its a private server - and the main users only log in when this one special guy logs in ?

And every time the users log in this one guy logs out ?

And so the users log out and wait for the special guy to log in again ?

 

so what do these private server members all do with their lives ? stay logged out all the time and watch the player list ?

nobody ever plays, right ?

 

At first everyone would play the regular way.

After some time we'd have: lonewolves that simply don't care about rare loot, groups/clans that fight each other.

The group with .50 cal becomes main target for everyone else to the point where they don't bother playing (why risk loosing your gear) unless The Guy is online; at the same time The Guy never logs in without a couple of friends to protect him.

 

Pretty much it looked like everyone was waiting for a special event (.50 cal online) rather than minding their own business and having a slight chance to find .50 cal spawned somewhere. 

Yup, the server died eventually because ppl didn't like it after a while.

[scriptfactory 620]

lolwhat? I've never heard about DayZ as 'cross-server clan battles' game. Can you please link some official statement about this? The only thing I heard of is clan bases, but it has nothing to do with cross-server battles. I always thought that DyZ is about survival social experiment, not some Battlefield with rare milweapons farming and assaulting clan bases on other servers.

 

Go to: www.youtube.com/watch?v=es42HrtPB3I&t=26m10s

Edited July 2, 2014 by scriptfactory