Accessibility, Userfriendliness and Quality of Life

[flexy 10]

Hey Guys, first of all: I know that most of the Player Base cares a great deal about realism.

That being said, it's a game with Zombies, so I think we can agree on "limited realism" for some things.

 

After all we are playing a game, and a game has to be user-friendly.

 

DayZ is brimming with bad game design and I hope it's just because it's an alpha.

For example: You find a Pot and think "They wouldn't let me find this without reason. I can probably cook in this game!"

Alright, but how do you find out how to do it? That's right: You alt-tab out of the game, search the net and thank RNGsus for the other players who figured it out and bothered enough to create a "How to [do something] in DayZ".

 

Another example: Just yesterday I ran around a bit, suddenly my Character says "My feet are sore/My feet hurt" while moving.

I figure he is sore from running so much and promptly sit down for a while. Nothing seems to happen. I begin to run around again. He is still complaining and I still don't know how to make the message go away. Why not add to the message why his feet are hurting and how to heal them? That would be an easy fix for this particular situation.

 

Back to the "I find stuff and don't know how to use it/what to combine it with"-problem:

We already have the "Inspect" option for any item in the game. How about you expand that option to show all possible uses of this item?

Or how about some kind of in-game item-library where you can search for any item and see their "tech-tree"? What I mean by that, is a graphical representation of items and what is used to craft them or other things with them. Imagine it like a pyramid system.

 

 

As it is right now, the game should display the warning "A second Monitor is strongly recommended to play this game." so you don't have to alt-tab all the time ;)

[tommy290 941]

I see what you're saying, but I think it would make things overly cluttered for anyone but the newest of bambis. I already hate the status messages instead of a minimal HUD, and I would doubly hate it if they added explanations for each status. I also don't want tons of scroll options to access more info. Once I know how something works, I don't need to see instructions. However, I don't see why all this info couldn't be worked into some kind of tutorial system (either in game or out of game). Something that would be by itself, so it wouldn't impact anyone who didn't specifically want to see it. Perhaps an extension of the journal? Or better yet, make it something you have to find in game. A survival book, for example. Once you find it, it becomes part of your journal and you can see how to do various things.

 

Overall, I like the idea of helping new users learn how to do things (without having to google for an answer), but I want to make sure that it doesn't make things messy visually once you get the hang of things.

[kichilron 8550]

Hey Guys, first of all: I know that most of the Player Base cares a great deal about realism.

 

After all we are playing a game, and a game has to be user-friendly.

 

I am afraid you could have stopped yourself right there.

 

All of what you suggested is not bad game design - it's exactly how it's supposed to be. The game will never be what you expect it to be if your approach is to google everything instead of testing it out yourself. This is what the game is all about in the end.

 

It was once described by its creator as the ultimate Anti-Game and what he wants it to be. Pretty much all of what you're describing here will reassure the Devs that this has worked.

 

Let me give you examples:

 

 

Another example: Just yesterday I ran around a bit, suddenly my Character says "My feet are sore/My feet hurt" while moving.

I figure he is sore from running so much and promptly sit down for a while. Nothing seems to happen. I begin to run around again. He is still complaining and I still don't know how to make the message go away. Why not add to the message why his feet are hurting and how to heal them? That would be an easy fix for this particular situation.

 

I - personally - would have thought about changing my shoes first before sitting down for a while and then continuing in a scenario like this. If there's a reason that my feet hurt than that reason won't be removed if I just sit down for a while. It doesn't change the fact that the shoes caused my feet to hurt in the first place and thus I wouldn't consider it bad design - I consider it good design.

 

 

 

Back to the "I find stuff and don't know how to use it/what to combine it with"-problem:

We already have the "Inspect" option for any item in the game. How about you expand that option to show all possible uses of this item?

Or how about some kind of in-game item-library where you can search for any item and see their "tech-tree"? What I mean by that, is a graphical representation of items and what is used to craft them or other things with them. Imagine it like a pyramid system.

 

 

No, no - please god no. I don't want to be taken by the hand and have everything explained to me. If I'd want that, I'd watch a movie. This is not the experience I am looking for and the very reason I play DayZ in the first place, because it doesn't do any of that sort.

 

 

After all it boils down to the premise of the game and what Dean had in mind when first creating the experience of DayZ (note that I didn't say game):

 

What happens if you're being thrown into the apocalypse for the first time?

 

You'd have to figure stuff out - not have some offscreen voice explain it to you or have a menu pop up in your face.

Edited January 30, 2015 by kichilron

[Dancing.Russian.Man 1631]

I have to side with Kichilron on this one.
The people here who have stayed for the longest time have done so because DayZ does things very differently than your ordinary (zombie) game.

It doesn't tell you where to go or what to do, it doesn't even try to hold your hand at all. It's more likely to chew it off instead.

 

If you look at the two links in my signature, you'll see the major outline DayZ started with.

That's the kind of game I want, even if I also enjoy very streamlined (or arcadey) shooters and/or survival games.

 

Edit; Obviously, some aspects of the current unfinished build of the game definitely need improvement, but we already know a lot of them will be improved.

Edited January 30, 2015 by Dancing.Russian.Man

[TheHermit (DayZ) 22]

As much as I have something against needing to Google for the answers to life,

 

I have to admit, finding things out from the forum and streams, has really added to the experience.

I don't follow the game close enough to know that I could have been using a sharpened stick or make a stone knife all that time.

Nor would I have figured out that if I searched stones, I would be able to even make a knife.

 

But man it was very cool when I happened to find out! It's like learning from other survivors. That's how it would work anyways. You hear thru the grapevine, and you're like "DAMN!! REALLY?" And then the next round of exploration becomes that much more an adventure. There are a lot of things that I do not know. And I will not search those things out. Somehow I'll hear about it later somewhere in some random discussion. It's much more of a long term experience that way.