Experimental Branch: 0.50 Discussion

[barnabus 1708]

Found 2 magazines for a 101, then I found the 101. Have almost 100 rnds loose 5.56. Doing my best not to starve. Looking for a knife or machete so I can hunt. Was hoping for a hot fix but with BI staff down with flu I find it unlikely, get well soon fellas. Might have to shelter in place for a while. I think I am in a good spot.

Edit: I have been finding loot in UAZ jeeps and beside or on the usual vehicles. Just not as often as before. Seems wood floored tents at NWAF spawn loot occasionally, but more frequently then the ones in the tent city in the woods west of Myshenko

Edited October 6, 2014 by Barnabus

[AlfalphaCat 66]

<snip>

 

Good thing this isn't REAL LIFE.  Sheesh, dude, go smoke another one and sleep it off.

[Tatanko 5591]

the three-house-and-a-barn spawn between Krutoy Cape and Solnichniy 

Three Valleys :)

[DocWolf 146]

Some suggestion about a future fix of 0.50.

Yeah, I know no Bohemia developer will read that, it's just food for the community's toughts.

Make Chernarus look bigger: how to.

With 0.50 the maps feels way bigger than before: walking instead of running is the key, and with sprinting as a big no-no unless you're chased by half Cherno's infecteds it will stay in this way until 0.51. Sadly we walk instead of perma-sprinting because calories consumption is insane. Not insanely difficult, simply (and plainly) unbalanced even on paper. A possible solution to the problem "easy survival":

* decrease run speed by 30%

* automatically stop sprinting after 2 real-world minutes from activation

* disable sprint for 10 real-world minutes after each activation

* bring back 0.49 calories consumption system

* decrease canned food spawn rate by 40%-50%

* decrease canned food caloric intake by 30%

* mantain 0.50 stomach filling limits

In this way you force people to cover distances more slowly, to actually plan against dehydratation/starvation without being too punitive and, in general, you avoid putting the loot respawn system under too much stress. Slightly decreasing caloric intake of food is, IMHO a much better solution than harshly increase calories consumption. I suspect it's more manageable even on from a developer's point of view: you don't have to modify a whole system or feature, you need to tweak just some values associated to certain items. Setting time limits to sprint and decreasing run speed means you have an easy placeholder while we wait the stamina/weight management system implementation.

This is what I hope seeing in a future update to 0.50. Any other suggestion or constructive criticism to Bohemia?

[Draknah 0]

Played many hours over a couple days  and on every try results were the same.

 

Rate of starvation and dehydration is extremely unrealistic

 

Stood at a berry bush trying to cure hunger and watched as dehydration just rocketed and then ran to the pond and hunger would go critical in the time it took to fill up on water.  

 

Need to scale both these way back please to perhaps real life terms as opposed to a few hours in an afternoon that it takes to die.

 

server performance wasn't too bad for me but did notice some trouble with zombies and seeing their position at times in combat they would become invisible or be half way into the floor of a structure and it seems that the most reliable form of combat against the undead is bare hands as I had more success boxing the zombies down rather then kill with a weapon in melee. it seems as if the weapons with reach have the most problems.

also at times the corpse would slide then become unreachable.

 

The zombies seem to cause slashing damage a bit too often as bleeding seems to be pretty consistent result of what looks to be a blunt force attack in my opinion.

perhaps it is bite damage but this cannot be determined by the animation.

 

Spawn of food could be a bit more acceptable except that you can have a dilemma of no device to open a can and this seems to happen a bit too often perhaps with an extension of the time it takes to starve this will be a non issue 

 

persistence seems to work pretty good - I had stash piles that I would put together to use for my guy in his many lives although some things did seem to go missing and cannot say if it was another player or server forgetting but in containers items would go missing or invisible in one case upon tearing a t shirt to create rags the contents of a 1st aid kit became visible.

 

[Gubbjeveln 18]

unplayable - unless you are very lucky and dont starve or freeze to death within minutes.

 

I wonder why the devs messing around with food balance and in the same time remove food from loot spawns... I really begin to think they just want to give us the worst possible experience

I have tried several times and not suceeded to stay alive ...yet. (I lifted this issue here and on reddit and met mostly hate ...I reealy do not understand ppl)

To be honest this build was a schock for me, and I always preach "adapt and improvise" and like survival challenges, I really do.

 

But this is too much.

Why put all spawns in those SE shoretowns instead for all over map?

Why so little respawn?

Why no food?

Why no clothes?

 

And c´mon surviving 2.5 kilometers jogging before starving to death! How do you think that we can get anywhere to explore glitches? 

 

Of course devs want to test balance, of course balancing can go wrong...BUT with a "so called" dialog with users and alpha and all ... why not confirm that shit have happend? Tell us that you know and are aware, and are repearing...

 

I have patience with the development, but I also know that some havent...you might loose some testpilots now by not informing, who never will come back, wich might be bad for the future. Imagine the day you are sitting here with only B8 and a few scriptkiddies ... and try to make a "realistic survival game" with that input. :) GL

 

Now I really like them devs to tell us what is what.

[xCAPx 349]

I like that the survival part is harder, but like other members said, it needs more balance. Its defenetly the right direction!
The first hours I died 5 times in row on starvation, because no town had food or items for hunting. (Persistence is working but buggy)
And I couldnt run/walk between two or three villags without dying.
Now Im in a neutral state and have some food on me, so its ok for now. In the evening I will try to survive the night.
I think its more fun now, but it needs balance - maybe with the next exp update :)

Also I would like to see the first stamina and weight implementations in the next patch, so we could give feedback to the cooperation of these hugh elements of the game.

[Tatanko 5591]

Some suggestion about a future fix of 0.50.

I'm not going to discuss the specifics of your plan, but I like the general idea behind it. If I'm reading this correctly, you're essentially suggesting that travel in general should be a more slow, deliberate, thought-out process than the current "sprint anywhere you want at any time very quickly" way of playing. This is good. I'm entirely in agreement that it would make the map feel a lot larger. It would also be more realistic in my opinion, as I can't see people in a real wasteland situation traveling as quickly and as far as we do in this game. Traveling should be something you have to strategize, where going to the wrong place could mean certain death due to wasted resources (as opposed to being killed by another player). As they begin to tweak existing parts of the map to give us more unique places to go, traveling will be something you want to do instead of just something you need to do.

 

unplayable - unless you are very lucky and dont starve or freeze to death within minutes.

 

I wonder why the devs messing around with food balance and in the same time remove food from loot spawns... I really begin to think they just want to give us the worst possible experience

It's Experimental; they aren't doing this deliberately to frustrate us -- they're using us to test the conditions. So far, I'd say they maybe dialed up the difficulty just a bit too much, but it's not "unplayable". It's just really, really hard.

 

Why put all spawns in those SE shoretowns instead for all over map?

They are all over the map, kind of. They stretch from Chernogorsk in the south clear up the coast to Svetlojarsk and then inland as far as Novodmitrovsk.

[fowang 60]

:blush:  yeah seems ok atm but don't like the fact that I ran off a roof by accident and died fully geared FML

[ebrim 998]

I'm worried that there's an attitude out there and an expectation that within a couple hours of spawning they should be energized and healthy. A whole section of the game is assumed to be something you should just skip over in many players' minds. Certainly the loot economy isn't finished but I get the feeling that so much of this negative response comes more from a reaction to denied expectations rather than an objective criticism of the experience.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Ebrim

[bonesnap 75]

I don't think it's physically possible to pick an apple off a living apple tree and it be rotten. It would only rot/decompose if it dropped from the tree I would think.

 

Half-eaten by worms/birds while on the tree makes sense, but even then it would still provide some nutrition (and possibly some protein at that, yuck though lol). Just my thoughts.

[RevolutionaryE 12]

Berries are much better for hunger then Apple's....Just saying

[BadAsh (DayZ) 1513]

Yeah, I'm opting out of exp for now as well. It doesn't really matter how energized, hydrated and healthy you are when you start out, 5 mins of running will take you close to starvation, and if you took the wrong turn to a town that has been looted you are pretty much fucked. I'm guessing they have all the information now about the various ways to die of starvation and dehydration now for anymore experimenting on the matter to be pointless.

 

This build has taught me a lot of valuable information about how the present loot system works though, information that will make my game experience in stable much better. One simply has to unlearn all about the old system, there are no non-loot spawning houses anymore, and in fact if a town appears to be looted, then it can often be quite a gold mine to loot the houses that in the old system didn't spawn any loot, and this works even in the coastal spawn towns. I have found basically everything (barring guns) by looting those houses (and the small shacks), and achieved healthy status simply by doing this. As I said, this unfortunately doesn't really help a lot in 0.50 as you will quickly starve no matter what you do, but on a properly balanced build this information will come in handy.

[blackberrygoo 1416]

I don't think it's physically possible to pick an apple off a living apple tree and it be rotten. It would only rot/decompose if it dropped from the tree I would think.

Actually there's a couple of diseases (infections ?) that affect apples and make them rot on the tree , also like you said if a bird pecks at an apple it rots extra fast because it's insides meet the oxygen :0 ! And if you've ever seen krabapple trees you'll know those things rot anytime it gets too cold (or hot I forget which one lol) and you'll see like ten rotten krabapples on a perfectly healthy tree :0 !

[Tatanko 5591]

Berries are much better for hunger then Apple's....Just saying

Based on what? They have essentially the same nutritional value, and apples provide more water. Has your experience been that berries are easier/quicker to pick than apples?

[robophant 102]

It's Experimental; they aren't doing this deliberately to frustrate us -- they're using us to test the conditions. So far, I'd say they maybe dialed up the difficulty just a bit too much, but it's not "unplayable". It's just really, really hard.

 

yea, it's experimental, thanks for that

 

And yes, they do it deliberately - There can't be any other reason to justify these latest changes.

I mean come on, it's so obvious that food doesn't spawn anymore as soon they started to mess around with hunger/thirst balance. What the heck do they want to test? Why can't they at least tell us?

 

I will not go back to experimental as long they don't explain what they actually want us to test - and how to test it.

[Demonica 311]

Okay... Funny story of the day. I was cold. It was raining. So I thought "Hey, if you run, you warm up! Let's run against a wall for a while and see what happens!" Well, warm up I did. I also broke my leg and ruined my pants.

 

Now, every 3-7 seconds my female character goes "uuhh...oh...uhhh" - I feel like I am in the wrong movie on so many levels. I think I'll let her die, this moaning is way more than I can take...

[MagneticToast 102]

Okay... Funny story of the day. I was cold. It was raining. So I thought "Hey, if you run, you warm up! Let's run against a wall for a while and see what happens!" Well, warm up I did. I also broke my leg and ruined my pants.

 

Now, every 3-7 seconds my female character goes "uuhh...oh...uhhh" - I feel like I am in the wrong movie on so many levels. I think I'll let her die, this moaning is way more than I can take...

For some reason in this game female characters groan about pain far more frequently...and they also breathe heavier after running. I had a glitch where I kept spawning as a woman and it was so. damn. irritating.

[Demonica 311]

For some reason in this game female characters groan about pain far more frequently...and they also breathe heavier after running. I had a glitch where I kept spawning as a woman and it was so. damn. irritating.

 

I know, right? I mean yeah, I get it, my leg is broken, and it hurts, but holy apple in a can, enough is enough already! Sad thing is I am finally geared and energized and I'm gonna die of cold and fractures cause I can't move.

Okay, fine, my own damn fault, but GAWD! Woman, shut UP!

[Tatanko 5591]

yea, it's experimental, thanks for that

 

And yes, they do it deliberately - There can't be any other reason to justify these latest changes.

I mean come on, it's so obvious that food doesn't spawn anymore as soon they started to mess around with hunger/thirst balance. What the heck do they want to test? Why can't they at least tell us?

 

I will not go back to experimental as long they don't explain what they actually want us to test - and how to test it.

No offense, but you're being a little stubborn about this. I understand your frustration, but there's a rhyme and reason to everything even if it's not specifically stated. It sounds like Experimental is not your cup of tea, so I would recommend spending your time on Stable.

[barnabus 1708]

No offense, but you're being a little stubborn about this. I understand your frustration, but there's a rhyme and reason to everything even if it's not specifically stated. It sounds like Experimental is not your cup of tea, so I would recommend spending your time on Stable.

I just figure if we knew what to test it would make the test irrelevant, we should be finding and reporting finding and reporting what bugs we find as well as the things that work well.  I am not sure we are testing experimental as much as experimental is testing us, if you get my meaning.  I'm ok with that. 

 

I did notice the control/walking bug is much more out of control on the first person servers than it is on the third person ones and reported that.  Because of that I am going back to stable, my 1st person character just was logged out in a REALLY BADLY zed infested spot on experimental due to server restart so I figure I'll log in being beat to death by a zed.  

 

I have also found a feeding station that has some strange magic loot spawning ability.  I pick something up and something appears and on and on until I can't pick up anything or it stops on it's own.  Get lots of food that way.

 

It also appears there is a weird drinking bug.  If I drink or eat in the crouched position I don't seem to get any benefit for hydration, I find that once I stand up my canteen is still at 100%.  This bugs affects me off and on when at a pond or a well.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Barnabus

[Ziad 34]

Yeah, that last is a known bug, side effect of the current persistence structure.

 

And yes, as I have said all along, we are what is being experimented on.  You don't tell the rats where the cheese is when you want to know how fast the rats will run the maze.

 

 

Z

[Tatanko 5591]

And yes, as I have said all along, we are what is being experimented on.  You don't tell the rats where the cheese is when you want to know how fast the rats will run the maze.

Shhh... don't even tell them there's cheese! If they know there is cheese, they will demand it be handed to them :p

[robophant 102]

No offense, but you're being a little stubborn about this. I understand your frustration, but there's a rhyme and reason to everything even if it's not specifically stated. It sounds like Experimental is not your cup of tea, so I would recommend spending your time on Stable.

 

yea you are right, i am stubborn.

I just don't like the way they use experimental without giving a little bit more information about whats going on. I want to help and test and all that stuff but not like this.

Edited October 6, 2014 by robophant

[flimsypremise 94]

I just figure if we knew what to test it would make the test irrelevant, we should be finding and reporting finding and reporting what bugs we find as well as the things that work well.  I am not sure we are testing experimental as much as experimental is testing us, if you get my meaning.  I'm ok with that. 

 

Player bug reports are not really the point of experimental. Most of the people playing don't know how to file proper bugs anyway, so it's generally garbage. The purpose of experimental is more akin to load testing. You're generating log data that provides feedback for large-scale issues the development team is working on. I think people get the impression that this works like tech support, where the dev team is reading your bugs and fixing them. That's not what's going on here for the most part. The developers are building new features on a timeline, and probably aren't going to divert to fix bugs that aren't immediately relevant to getting the new features in a playable state for stable.

 

The stuff that people are complaining about in here probably has a lot more to do with a player population that is a lot larger relative to the number of available servers than stable is, which is why experimental almost always has loot scarcity problems along the coast. It's not going to be fixed because it's not actually a problem.