Why even persist?

[treetop82 59]

Discussion about persistence. Is it even worth it? Is the development team wasting time struggling to perfect it?

 

I don't have an answer to this question, just an opinion.. they've definitely got an uphill battle in fine tuning this core dynamic. This last week I've been playing non-persistent servers and have enjoyed the balance of loot, the re-looting of a town after a server reset. 

 

Here are some problems with keeping persistence:

 

1. Massive amounts of items - The idea of items persisting for days, weeks, years on a map while maintaining a balance of loot elsewhere seems impossible from a few logical positions. First, servers will end up being bogged down. More items means slower performance, higher memory usage and lower FPS for the Core I3 user running into Novod. More problems for developers in the long run.

 

2. Balance of items - To keep an even balance of items throughout the map will be difficult. How can the developers ensure a proper inflow (spawning) and outflow (looting) of items in any town without complex formulas and multiple months of testing. This is tied to problem #1.

 

3. False hope - A server admin can just decide one day to wipe his server, meaning all your items go bye-bye. Or the server you stored your items turns off the power switch. There is a false hope that with persistence, a players items are safe no matter where they drop them. Tents, houses, etc. Players want a clear understanding of how to protect their items. If they put them in a house, or if they put them in a tent or if they leave the item in their backpacks, there must be a confidence that their items are safe.

 

4. Trial and error - Perfecting persistence (I believe is possible) will take lots and lots of testing and patches/server wipes to get it right. The developers need to see how items move from location to location. This means that they'll regularly have to wipe characters. Do we really want to deal with more wipes in the future?

 

 

My answer: Use Ultima Online's item dynamic, it's simple and straight forward. It worked in 1996 and would work now by keeping a cap on total server items.

 

1. Items left in tents never decay, but the tent will if you don't interact with it within 14 days. If server gets shut down you are still SOL.

2. Each player can only place 2 tents per server.

3. Items picked up and dropped on the ground will decay in 24 hours. Items not touched will decay and respawn on server reboot.

4. Therefore, a player who drops his backpack on the ground to use his Ghillie bushrag will still have his items if the server crashes. At the same time, this prevents people from dropping 100 M4s at the corner of the map.

5. Servers will reboot every 2-4 hours, with a warning.

 

This will keep a limit on items stored either in a tent or in a player's inventory. This negates the fear of dropping an item on the ground at an inopportune time (server crash). This keeps towns with a fresh rotation of items. This allows developers to go spend their time working on other fun things.

 

Thanks, now flame away.

Edited January 5, 2015 by treetop82

[scriptfactory 620]

I agree. The current "save everything" style of persistence with weekly wipes is sub-optimal but with the global loot economy I can see persistence working quite well.

My changes for the short-term would be:

• Wipe storage objects (tents, world containers, stashes) every 7-14 days if there is no player interaction.
• On server restart wipe all items not stored in storage objects based on their created/updated timestamp on an interval specified by the shard admin (e.g. 24-72 hours). This means if a player picks up and drops an item every day it will not despawn.
• Give players the ability to destroy storage objects.
• Give admins the ability to wipe all items not contained in storage objects on demand once per 24 hours.
• No limit on tents per player. No limit on items stored in world containers.

Edited January 5, 2015 by scriptfactory

[Rags! 1966]

When persistence is working optimally, it will be one of this game's strongest, most amazing elements. No longer will server lists be full of 1,2, and 4 hour restarts where only the first person to reach a certain spot will benefit from it. 

[chokko 45]

Discussion about persistence. Is it even worth it? Is the development team wasting time struggling to perfect it?

 

I don't have an answer to this question, just an opinion.. they've definitely got an uphill battle in fine tuning this core dynamic. This last week I've been playing non-persistent servers and have enjoyed the balance of loot, the re-looting of a town after a server reset. 

 

Here are some problems with keeping persistence:

 

1. Massive amounts of items - The idea of items persisting for days, weeks, years on a map while maintaining a balance of loot elsewhere seems impossible from a few logical positions. First, servers will end up being bogged down. More items means slower performance, higher memory usage and lower FPS for the Core I3 user running into Novod. More problems for developers in the long run.

 

2. Balance of items - To keep an even balance of items throughout the map will be difficult. How can the developers ensure a proper inflow (spawning) and outflow (looting) of items in any town without complex formulas and multiple months of testing. This is tied to problem #1.

 

3. False hope - A server admin can just decide one day to wipe his server, meaning all your items go bye-bye. Or the server you stored your items turns off the power switch. There is a false hope that with persistence, a players items are safe no matter where they drop them. Tents, houses, etc. Players want a clear understanding of how to protect their items. If they put them in a house, or if they put them in a tent or if they leave the item in their backpacks, there must be a confidence that their items are safe.

 

4. Trial and error - Perfecting persistence (I believe is possible) will take lots and lots of testing and patches/server wipes to get it right. The developers need to see how items move from location to location. This means that they'll regularly have to wipe characters. Do we really want to deal with more wipes in the future?

 

 

My answer: Use Ultima Online's item dynamic, it's simple and straight forward. It worked in 1996 and would work now by keeping a cap on total server items.

 

1. Items left in tents never decay, but the tent will if you don't interact with it within 14 days. If server gets shut down you are still SOL.

2. Each player can only place 2 tents per server.

3. Items picked up and dropped on the ground will decay in 24 hours. Items not touched will decay and respawn on server reboot.

4. Therefore, a player who drops his backpack on the ground to use his Ghillie bushrag will still have his items if the server crashes. At the same time, this prevents people from dropping 100 M4s at the corner of the map.

5. Servers will reboot every 2-4 hours, with a warning.

 

This will keep a limit on items stored either in a tent or in a player's inventory. This negates the fear of dropping an item on the ground at an inopportune time (server crash). This keeps towns with a fresh rotation of items. This allows developers to go spend their time working on other fun things.

 

Thanks, now flame away.

Your concerns...

1) instead of trying to run dayz on a processor designed for lightweight work/nas... run it with an i5 or i7?

2) what's wrong with complex formulas ? that's why they teach maths in computer science courses (so stay at school kiddies !). Time we have, this game isn't going beta/full release anytime soon.

3) server admin ain't going to do that too many times, and still expect people to play on it. at the same time, players can do themselves a favour by keeping up to date by reading the server messages the admin provides and/or read their forum.

4) who says they aren't monitoring loot distribution already ? wipes are fact of life until this game is in full release.

 

maybe a little storm can come through and blow the tents away after 14 days of nobody touching it.

I don't have a problem with people dropping more than 2 tents. I never use them myself, but enjoy hunting for peoples camps to loot in the forests.

Servers already reboot every 2-4 hours. If there are no warnings, find one with better admin.

[treetop82 59]

Your concerns...

1) instead of trying to run dayz on a processor designed for lightweight work/nas... run it with an i5 or i7?

2) what's wrong with complex formulas ? that's why they teach maths in computer science courses (so stay at school kiddies !). Time we have, this game isn't going beta/full release anytime soon.

3) server admin ain't going to do that too many times, and still expect people to play on it. at the same time, players can do themselves a favour by keeping up to date by reading the server messages the admin provides and/or read their forum.

4) who says they aren't monitoring loot distribution already ? wipes are fact of life until this game is in full release.

 

maybe a little storm can come through and blow the tents away after 14 days of nobody touching it.

I don't have a problem with people dropping more than 2 tents. I never use them myself, but enjoy hunting for peoples camps to loot in the forests.

Servers already reboot every 2-4 hours. If there are no warnings, find one with better admin.

 

4) this game will never see full release, its making too much money in alpha

3) true, but it still puts a player in the false hope that their stuff is protected

2) my point is that perfecting persistence may be a waste of man hours that the developers could be focusing on other features, i think you would find half or more of players don't care for it anyway

1) this is a slippery slope that I've seen fail for big games before (online games), the idea that a person must upgrade to a top of the line system or processor to make the game work properly. It just makes players frustrated at the game devs

[Bororm 1156]

My answer: Use Ultima Online's item dynamic, it's simple and straight forward. It worked in 1996 and would work now by keeping a cap on total server items.

 

1. Items left in tents never decay, but the tent will if you don't interact with it within 14 days. If server gets shut down you are still SOL.

2. Each player can only place 2 tents per server.

3. Items picked up and dropped on the ground will decay in 24 hours. Items not touched will decay and respawn on server reboot.

4. Therefore, a player who drops his backpack on the ground to use his Ghillie bushrag will still have his items if the server crashes. At the same time, this prevents people from dropping 100 M4s at the corner of the map.

5. Servers will reboot every 2-4 hours, with a warning.

 

This will keep a limit on items stored either in a tent or in a player's inventory. This negates the fear of dropping an item on the ground at an inopportune time (server crash). This keeps towns with a fresh rotation of items. This allows developers to go spend their time working on other fun things.

 

Thanks, now flame away.

 

Yay, UO, the best mmo ever!

 

The things you've listed here are sorta what they've already got planned.  Items that aren't in storage containers (tents/packs) are going to decay after X amount of restarts.  I don't think they've mentioned plans for a limit on tents, but that would actually be a nice idea and it would potentially help with the possible issue of server hopping.  If you could only have a couple tents on your character, it would encourage you to stick to one server.

 

One core difference between DayZ and UO though is that tents can easily be destroyed/stolen in DayZ.  For that reason I don't think they necessarily need a refresh system, as it's highly unlikely your tent is going to last even a week on DayZ.

 

Any ways, persistence is very important to the DayZ experience.  Without long term goals it is just rounds of deathmatch.  It's one of the features I'm looking forward to most!  Good points and ideas though.

[chokko 45]

4) this game will never see full release, its making too much money in alpha

3) true, but it still puts a player in the false hope that their stuff is protected

2) my point is that perfecting persistence may be a waste of man hours that the developers could be focusing on other features, i think you would find half or more of players don't care for it anyway

1) this is a slippery slope that I've seen fail for big games before (online games), the idea that a person must upgrade to a top of the line system or processor to make the game work properly. It just makes players frustrated at the game devs

4) no comment

3) rent your own server if you are that insecure

2) I think you are speaking for yourself there. I, and those on my server, all want persistence on - once issues with choppers etc are resolved.

1) i5/i7 have been pretty standard (intel wise) for gaming for past what, 5 years? most are cheap, perform well. no need to buy the $1000 editions unless you are indeed after top of the line performance. if you want to buy cheap, then expect cheap performance, especially in a CPU intensive game. next you'll be demanding dayz works on a raspberry pi...

[Bonesnap_SE 4]

On a personal note I think DayZ really needs a working persistence, and I'm looking forward to see it working even though that might take a while. The whole idea of everybody rushing for loot after server restart is somewhat gamebreaking in my eyes, as well as frequent server resets.  

[Beizs 186]

Persistence isn't the issue here.

 

The issue is cleanup and respawning items.

 

I'd say that, any items that aren't guns or backpacks/containers (with items stored inside of them) should get cleaned up on a regular basis.

 

Backpacks, if not interacted with for a long time, should also be cleaned.

 

Tents, etc, never need to be cleaned. If there's enough players on a server, it will be found. If there's not, then the server will never get bugged down from its persistence.

 

Items not inside of a container (backpacks, small protector cases, ammo crates) slowly deteriorates until it reaches ruined. Any ruined items get deleted when they're not within the view of a player. Health packs would need to deteriorate outside of a different container as they spawn with items inside of them. These items are all fully persistent, they just degrade if left on the floor. Guns should not be included in this, unless they add rotation of items to fit weapons inside of backpacks. If this happens, however, they should degrade also and need to be stored in backpacks etc to keep them safe.

 

Respawn system just needs to look at amounts of loot in a certain area, with a target for each section of the map (the smaller, the better) and periodically spawn more loot to meet these targets. The CLE will control what loot spawns and voila, everything works great.

Edited January 6, 2015 by Beizs

[büffel 16]

In my opinion the Tents are useless for now, they get wiped every week, me and my friends build  a litte base with 4 military tents, but for real it was totaly wasted time cause tomorrow all we stored is getting wiped out we will try to carry as much as possible but its maybe 1 half tent, and the rest will be gone.

 

Thats just bullshit and we will not use tents again. Like many here said, wipe tents IF nobody touched them for 1 week or so.

[PhillyT 554]

Why do people keep claiming this won't see full release?  How is leaving it in alpha while continuing to work on it making them MORE money?

 

On the issue of persistence, there needs to be a system that both supports items remaining long term while also allowing for respawning of items on a regular basis.  The current issue is that players need to look for those small towns nobody has been to since the last refresh to find ANYTHING of value.  While interesting, it creates an equally unrealistic rush immediately after a refresh as everyone rushes the military zones, which are then left mostly barren for the week after (other than for Deathmatching) while people wait for the server to repopulate it with items.

 

The MOD had a nice system where items spawned when you approached.  Maybe having a floating respawn rate based on the total number of goods on the server would work.  Approach a town, the server checks how many beans are in inventory with players and storage, then spawns X number near your location representing a fraction of the potential maximum number of beans in the game.  Just a thought.

 

Something does need to be done to restrict groups from hoarding all of the best materials if there is going to be global limits.

[blackberrygoo 1416]

Persistence is definitely needed ... Trying to keep dayz in this state would be a travesty , and honestly this thread seems more of a passive aggressive attack at the state of the game ... "The game will never be out of alpha because it's Made too much money " . Why? What makes you believe that ?

Regardless , persistence , despite the Problems it's having now , will be great in the end and I can already see it being great now. A friend and I have two different characters going, one on a persistence on and one on a persistence off , and honestly were having more fun on the persistence ON server simply because we don't get looted to capacity in twenty minutes , or even an hour ... It takes a while to properly gear up and when we find enough loot we just wait in one of our favorite towns when the server is half full to full , and just start making farms and dropping the food in various houses around the town , it's fun to see that most of it actually stays after restarts and it's exciting to see a real apocalypse feel rather than just spawning in finding an m4 at the nearest airfield and killing everything we see like what happens on persistence off servers simply because the OFF server has an easier feel and it's much less of a fun experience when it's too easy like that, not til mention all the deuchebag server hoppers that plague persistence off servers !

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

Simply put, because a persistent world is a core pillar of the design of DayZ. Without it, you have a different game.

[Bludy 324]

 

3) true, but it still puts a player in the false hope that their stuff is protected

 

 

that's your fault and it will always be a false hope, also i agree that a lot of players don't care, but they wouldn't in any case, persistence or not, and they already paid for it

[Evil Minion 943]

It worked in 1996 and would work now by keeping a cap on total server items.

Because its old and outdated while also having some obvious flaws. So basically your suggestion is to not make something better but stick with an old system that limits the game experience from the start.

 

As for your problems:

1. I am pretty sure the game is supposed to have a massive number of items. You are right there should be limits but this can achieved by basically three things: limits (hive and server wise) to certain sets of items, item decay and probabilistic spawn rates (probability of XY spawning = probability of XY getting removed). None of those clash with persistence.
2. Balance is always a very difficult task in any game that is even a tiny bit complex. Now in DayZ it's more important for gameplay reasons and less for competitive "fairness" - the world is not fair. I think a players focus should not really be on having the best item but having an adequate one.
3. Thats a personal problem. I think nothing should last forever in DayZ and this also goes for tents and storage. Now there are many different reasons to lose your stuff - stolen or destroyed by other players, destroyed by the environment and of cause servers/game issues. Get over it - life is not fair. One example worth mentioning here is a current bug with chambered pistols that incidentally behaves like the case jamming your weapon - something that actually happens with chambered pistols in real life.
4. Thats how development and support work. You cannot avoid this unless you are only using prebuilt elements. And even then you need to test and tweak the way they are connected. Trial and error can be reduced by using designs with solid theoretical background (maths and knowledge) but it can never be completely removed.

[Death By Crowbar 1213]

Persistence makes the most sense when you play on a particular server. When you move around servers all the time, as OP mentioned things get interesting, but it's still a good thing in general.

[Dagwood 680]

Simply put, because a persistent world is a core pillar of the design of DayZ. Without it, you have a different game.

The dayz mod that many of us fell in love with only had a few persistent items. Can you explain how having all items being persistent will make the SA a different game from the mod? I agree that it definitely moves meta thinking away from "restart server, hit X spot immediately to get first dibs", but I'd like to hear your thought on how else it will effect the overall dayz experience.

[PhillyT 554]

Well, finding guns for one thing.  In the MOD, you run into a place where you know a spawn point exists, reach that point, get a gun and some mags, move to the next location hoping to get a better gun.

 

With persistence on weapon spawns, guns will spawn at locations, but once a player gets the gun, that gun is no longer at that point and the next player will not find it.  I don't know how much better that might be, but it certainly changes the all the guns all the time dynamic of the MOD.  The issue with this version of persistence is that an organized clan can start scooping the good loot, storing it amongst their followers or in a storage container, and call it a day, holding the best loot on a server.  Sometimes this happened with the MOD (I recall a server I played on removed the option to purchase some military vehicles but didn't delete those that had already been bought making those specific vehicles the only ones left and so incredibly important).

[Irish. 4886]

When persistence is working optimally, it will be one of this game's strongest, most amazing elements. No longer will server lists be full of 1,2, and 4 hour restarts where only the first person to reach a certain spot will benefit from it. 

 

This.  ;)

[LORDPrometheus 21]

I just love how everyone on this thread is still complaining about persistence existing despite a dev taking the time to come by and say its a core feature and is here to stay

Yes it needs improvement Books and boots for one need to be less abundant and a cell needs to be purged on server reset when a massive amount of items is in it IE the ultra loots we all occasionally run across

As for performance... Well this is not a game for the causal gamer anyway

that being said my rig is an old Phenom II x4 and RadeonHd6850 and I get 60fps unless I'm in a city so unless your using an I3 or Athalon with integrated graphics your fine at this stage with low graphics settings on (I run normal)

[PhillyT 554]

I think the assumption that you should have a work horse computer to play this game is unrealistic.  No game can base its entry level at ultra high when it is already a bit of a niche experience.  They are trying to make some money on this dog.

 

Bohemia is terrible at producing efficient games.  They just aren't any good at it.  But they still make a nice base on which to produce something really cool.  DayZ has the potential to be their biggest seller.  We will see what they do to get it across the finish line.  I don't anticipate them breaking their mold and suddenly producing ID Software level cleanliness and performance, but they will need to do something to manage RAM and processor strain for essentially insignificant features (like storing every rag and matchbox dropped by players).

[huf757 82]

I do not understand why they do not do the persistence like it was in the mod. (I am also a diesel mechanic and out side of pushing power on my computer I have very little computing knowledge  :) )  Inside a tent it stayed.  Outside of tent or not on your players immediate inventory it went away at restart.  Seems simple and it worked nicely for me.  With that being said it seems to me also the DEV'S for this game are very motivated to try different things out.  Instead of going for the cookie cutter mold of the mod.  So in the end we must take the good with the bad.  Ambition and determination are good things in and of themselves, but put a team with both together and amazing things happen in time.

Edited January 6, 2015 by huf757

[PhillyT 554]

Persistence in the MOD is good, but it leads to huge amounts of fire arms.  That isn't itself an issue, but they are shooting for a more survival feel and less of a Deathmatch game with SA.  MOD is a great military sim with deathmatch and light zombie play.  The SA is looking to make Zombies the main issue and survival against starvation and weather a serious danger, with deathmatch being tertiary.

 

Having guns and potentially food spawn with regularity makes it much less of the first two.

[Dagwood 680]

Persistence in the MOD is good, but it leads to huge amounts of fire arms. That isn't itself an issue, but they are shooting for a more survival feel and less of a Deathmatch game with SA. MOD is a great military sim with deathmatch and light zombie play.

Having guns and potentially food spawn with regularity makes it much less of the first two.

So you're saying that persistence, rather than loot respawning universally with every restart, is good, right? Cause weapons and food respawning is going to happen, no matter what. And to address the over abundance of firearms, like you mentioned, the devs are implementing a central hive economy or something to control the availability of upper tier items.

As far as hoarding run of the mill guns and equipment, idk what can be done about that. But it will hAppen with or without persistence. I would argue less easily with persistence than without.

[crazykage 1063]

Cudos and beans for you, OP.

Very interesting, concise and to the point, and well said.

I find I have no arguments against anything you said. Very nice.

Can we get a Chuck Norris Meme in here? You know, the one from dodgeball?