Safe or Fear? .49

[robbyj 77]

Right now, I have traded in my hunting backpack, combat vest, and military helmet for a downy coat, red hiking backpack, and a beanie. Why?

I feel so damn safe every time I log on. I don't care if the server has 1 person or 39 I never come into contact with others. I log out around the north west airfield and loot until I am completely fed. Look for players for about 20 minutes and then log off. Repeat. Right now I am more afraid of dying of the cold or rainy weather then a player. I am not sure of the intentions in future updates, but the way I see it, there must be either more players per server. 90+ or a smaller map. I want to put down my running simulator and get back to Dayz. I want to be able to stay up in a northern no name town and run into a traveler every so often. I want to be taken hostage or share stories of survival with someone other then my pen and paper. Just my thoughts, feel free to bash them.

[Helix2000 128]

then go to berezino if you want action. i am all for larger numbers of players on servers, but making the map smaller? no way. it does not take long to run form one side o the map to the other, making the map smaller will just take out some of the realism.

but that is just my 2 cents

[robbyj 77]

then go to berezino if you want action. i am all for larger numbers of players on servers, but making the map smaller? no way. it does not take long to run form one side o the map to the other, making the map smaller will just take out some of the realism.

but that is just my 2 cents

My reason for making the map smaller is NOT because it takes too long to run. It is too hard to find 39 other players with the current map size.

[Conrad_The_Comrade 577]

I don't think the intention (at least in my opinion) is to run into players a lot, it's to make the few interactions you have count for something. Also, I think that fear of the weather is more important than fear of other people, in the conditions the world is at that time, you shouldn't be afraid of people as much as what the world is throwing at you now, be it zombies, the weather, natural disasters (Yeah, I know it's not in the game, just an example xD). But hey, different people, different playstyles, different opinions. :)

[leviathanapsu 94]

Funny. I seem to be able to run into people every single time I go on a server even when there is only one other person on the whole thing. Doesn't seem to matter where I am, though obviously the East coast sees more on a populated server. I don't feel like I can let my guard down anywhere lately.

[Red_Ensign 990]

if this was real you'd avoid other people like the plague.

[Bad Company 140]

Novo, Berezino and Severograd are still good places to meet people due to how the spawns are laid out. 

And you won't often run into THAT many people in the looting-areas around Vybor/NWA on full servers due to people either afraid of getting killed or that all the looter is taken.

I've gone onto 40/40 servers and found completely unlooted barracks and such.

[Grimey Rick 3417]

Spawned in Chernogorsk on a fresh server with one other person.

 

Ran to the fire station.

 

Took heavy AKM fire.

 

Snatched a fire axe on my way out.

 

Ran around like a retard.

 

Axed the guy when he was reloading.

 

Felt good about myself.

 

Went AFK to poop while crouched in a bush along the main road.

 

Came back just as another geared guy runs by me. (The server is now 3/40.)

 

Shoot him in the back.

 

Random is random.

[Rags! 1966]

My current hope:

 

- 75 players on a server, possibly more

 

- Spawn Points all over Chernarus, not just around the coast.

 

- Fleshing out of the Northern regions of the map

 

- Another Ghost in the Shell season

 

Now let me tell you why coastal spawns suck Percheron schlongs...

 

- You spawn with your back to the ocean, which means that half the possible directions you could go are not viable. That's not the kind of freedom you should have when you start this game. Remember in Skyrim when you left the cave at Helgen at the beginning? The whole world is opened up to you. You don't have to go to Riverwood. You can go anyplace. That's what DayZ should be like once you're plopped into a new character.

 

- By creating a zone or area where newbies spawn, you effectively use them to bait geared players who want to kill players who cannot fight back. Similarly, you create a zone of the map where players with weapons run in to far too many unarmed players that have not had the chance to arm themselves. At the coast, the rich are richer because there are so many ungeared players around. A Sporter is a weapon of mass destruction at the coast, not so much inland after people have had the opportunity to find better armaments. 

 

- It destroys the "organic" feeling of meeting other players. When you know for a fact that most players spawn in a certain place, you know that by traveling there you can find people with low level gear, if any at all. The most players you cluster in Elektro and Berezino, the less and less players will meet one another out in the other 99.89% of the map that you'e crafted for us to play in. I have NEVER seen another player in Zelenogorsk...or Musta, Pusta, Tulga, Khelm, Pustoshka, Grishino, Gvozdno, Rogovo, Pogorevka...the list goes on and on, just nobody there. They're all at the coast, far far away, at the military bases, or on their way to either. Meeting players seems like something that's very very very easy to control and it shouldn't feel like that. 

 

For instance, I was on a full 40 players server yesterday looking for experiment subjects new friends, and I found FOUR new spawns within as many minutes in Kamishovo. FOUR. That's a tenth of the entire server population I found in a few minutes in the same town where they spawned. 

[q.S Sachiel 470]

Never safe.

The predator makes sure the prey feels safe, right before the pounce.

I don't see thaaat many people out in the wilderness, but when i do they're well geared enough to pose a threat.  I generally travel through cover, which means i'm harder to spot (and so are you) but when one of us is, then the threat is greater, because most weapons are equivalent at 1-200m.

[TheFarm 158]

I have run into so many players in .49 compared to before. The server I play on has been low-medium pop lately, usually around 15 players at peak times.

I haven't been to berezino yet in .49 but have spawned in cherno twice and it was very busy both times.

[sachad 1016]

I find that the more players are on a server, the more dispersed they are. When you think you're alone, you may take more risks, like going to hotspots (NWAF, Berezino, Cherno etc), but others may have the same idea, so you get these situations where there's maybe three or four others on the server and you encounter them all in the same area. Likewise, when a server is at high capacity, you may want to stay away from dangerous spots, when in reality those places are deserted because everyone is too scared to go there as well.

 

Today by way of experiment, I went to the NWAF on a server with 34/40 people, running up and down the runway, occasionally firing a shot into the air. Normally that's an automatic death sentence, and bullets will fly past your ears within seconds. But... nothing. I went to the tents, same thing. I waited for almost an hour for someone to show up, and as soon as I fired another round, not even in his direction, he did a 180 and fled back into the woods.

[Bad Company 140]

I find that the more players are on a server, the more dispersed they are. When you think you're alone, you may take more risks, like going to hotspots (NWAF, Berezino, Cherno etc), but others may have the same idea, so you get these situations where there's maybe three or four others on the server and you encounter them all in the same area. Likewise, when a server is at high capacity, you may want to stay away from dangerous spots, when in reality those places are deserted because everyone is too scared to go there as well.

 

Today by way of experiment, I went to the NWAF on a server with 34/40 people, running up and down the runway, occasionally firing a shot into the air. Normally that's an automatic death sentence, and bullets will fly past your ears within seconds. But... nothing. I went to the tents, same thing. I waited for almost an hour for someone to show up, and as soon as I fired another round, not even in his direction, he did a 180 and fled back into the woods.

 

Its weird, I also run into people at the weirdest places

(second video is from an event though, but they could've been anywhere between Zelenogorsk, Stary and Elektro

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAPaiuxvIds&list=UUqoupciJyXQJ398J3SRYSxA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzHz6ijXA7A&list=UUqoupciJyXQJ398J3SRYSxA

[Helix2000 128]

My reason for making the map smaller is NOT because it takes too long to run. It is too hard to find 39 other players with the current map size.

jump onto a full server and walk through berezino. i can almost guarantee that there will be people there who will try to kill you. or, now that there are south coast spawns again, wait around in elektro or cherno. if you are there to be shot at, they will come...

[insolicious 24]

Not sure what you're doing but with all the vybor spawns the NWAF is like the biggest playground of all. I picked up a friend in vybor, went to the military base nearby and while he was looting the first barracks I had to use my m4 twice already. Later on we ended up at the NWAF, adding one of our snipers to our group and saw a mass of at least 8 people running all over the airfield before we got into a proper position to scatter them.

Sure, this is not happening frequently, however, I meet quite a few people in the west, even when hunting choppers towards Zelenogorsk.

[Mark Darkers 151]

My reason for making the map smaller is NOT because it takes too long to run. It is too hard to find 39 other players with the current map size.

The rarity of the encounters is what's get your adrenaline pumping when you do have one. If you get things to frequently, humans will eventually get used to a certain feeling and get numb to it.

 

And as stated before by the devs, the plans are to support 100 pop servers.

[Khanarac 252]

My current hope:

 

- 75 players on a server, possibly more

 

- Spawn Points all over Chernarus, not just around the coast.

 

- Fleshing out of the Northern regions of the map

 

- Another Ghost in the Shell season

 

Now let me tell you why coastal spawns suck Percheron schlongs...

 

- You spawn with your back to the ocean, which means that half the possible directions you could go are not viable. That's not the kind of freedom you should have when you start this game. Remember in Skyrim when you left the cave at Helgen at the beginning? The whole world is opened up to you. You don't have to go to Riverwood. You can go anyplace. That's what DayZ should be like once you're plopped into a new character.

 

- By creating a zone or area where newbies spawn, you effectively use them to bait geared players who want to kill players who cannot fight back. Similarly, you create a zone of the map where players with weapons run in to far too many unarmed players that have not had the chance to arm themselves. At the coast, the rich are richer because there are so many ungeared players around. A Sporter is a weapon of mass destruction at the coast, not so much inland after people have had the opportunity to find better armaments. 

 

- It destroys the "organic" feeling of meeting other players. When you know for a fact that most players spawn in a certain place, you know that by traveling there you can find people with low level gear, if any at all. The most players you cluster in Elektro and Berezino, the less and less players will meet one another out in the other 99.89% of the map that you'e crafted for us to play in. I have NEVER seen another player in Zelenogorsk...or Musta, Pusta, Tulga, Khelm, Pustoshka, Grishino, Gvozdno, Rogovo, Pogorevka...the list goes on and on, just nobody there. They're all at the coast, far far away, at the military bases, or on their way to either. Meeting players seems like something that's very very very easy to control and it shouldn't feel like that. 

 

For instance, I was on a full 40 players server yesterday looking for experiment subjects new friends, and I found FOUR new spawns within as many minutes in Kamishovo. FOUR. That's a tenth of the entire server population I found in a few minutes in the same town where they spawned. 

What does "fleshing out the north" mean? More mindless towns? Where are we supposed to hide our vehicles? Will you park your car in a spot where people go to loot stuff? I won't. There is hardly any wilderness left at this point. Hiding a vehicle will be an excersise in futility.

 

The problem is not the coast spawning. I can only report from my experience in dayzero here: You spawn on the coast there aswell, but people are everywhere, in every town and every forest. It's 65 man servers. One reason might be that people avoid entering towns unless there is a high priority target in there, like a hospital,  or they really need some food/drink/gun. Because entering towns means dealing with many zombies.

 

People will stay in spawn areas unless you give them a reason to move, and since serverhopping is so convenient they can equipp themselves right where they spawn, on the coast. To me that's the whole reason this happens. As a sidenote: we currently have too many military bases, they are not contested enough. They should remove the Vybor military, pavlovo mil, the barracks from balota and the new tenttown near myshkino. Right now spawning in cherno is the jackpot, easy looting at balota.

 

 

 

Oh and btw, dayz mod used to have total random spawns, not just coasts. It sucked imo, there is a reason why they removed it. It reduces the chances to meet your friends dramatically and new people are overwhelmed even more.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Khanarac

[Rags! 1966]

-snip-

 

- It does not mean more "mindless towns", as you put it. It means putting something up there that gives us a reason to go there. 

 

- I literally could not care less where you hide your vehicles in DayZ.

 

- Saying that we shouldn't move spawns from the coast and then in the same post saying that people will stay in the spawn areas on the coast unless we give them a reason to move is silly. This is the point. Give them a reason to move around. Encourage mobility. Don't keep spawning people in the same area and encourage them to hop servers because the spawn areas are picked bone dry. Spread people out and increase the amount of places of interest and value so that the points of interest do not become overcrowded. Like what the coast is now. 

 

- I WANT new people to be overwhelmed. I want them to be barbarians marveling at the gates of Rome for the first thirty hours of their playtime before the first tiny shred of familiarity creeps into their subconscious.

[Khanarac 252]

The reason to move around will come soon enough: private hives = no serverhopping.

 

Inability to hide valued vehicles will cause major frustration.

 

The reasons to move around are only crashsites and hidden player's stashes or hunting players. Crashsites loot is not exacly great at the moment, stashes are none-existant with only partial persistence.

Moving spawnpoints around won't encourage mobility, it will encourage more suicides until the desired spawnpoint is taken. Therefore, not silly.

 

Unfortunatly in the standalone there is no reason to go anywhere specific unless its a military location. Hospitals and supermarkets don't mean shit now, and every town has basicly the same loot, unless there is a special building there like fire-or policestation. Again, imo random spawnpoints won't do anything to get the people off the coast. At this point, I don't see why we would waste our time in towns tbh. The only reason I loot towns is because I DO NOT want to look military, I wanna look civilian but in favourable brown/green colours. However, it takes way longer to loot a city for proper clothes and weapons than a militaryfacility. In the end it's always better the go there timeconsuptionwise, and if you're not up for trouble, leave again.

 

In dayzero it's kinda great. You have the people who have nothing to lose on the coast. There you can practise. The further inland you go, the better armed the players are that you meet and also their skill and organisation, aswell as squadsize rises the further you go. Imo this is the best possible thing that can happen to dayz SA. I hope it develops similarly, but I don't think anyone can predict how the game will turn out and how future designchoices will influence player's behaviour.

 

Also keep in mind that when vehicles are introduced, we will have to look for parts for them. So cities with industrial facilities will suddenly become attractive to those looking to fixing up a car.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Khanarac