Why is such a drastic increase in enterable buildings considered a good thing?

[BC_Hawke 276]

I'm curious, why has so much of SA's focus been on planting down as many enterable houses, buildings, and apartment complexes as possible?  The end result of this has been a drastic reduction in player interaction in comparison to the vanilla mod.  While the mod certainly had too few enterable buildings which definitely justified some map additions, the last year of SA development has drastically increased the size of the map via buildings.  Sure, Chernarus still has the same area in sq km, but by adding so many buildings the map has been virtually increased in size drastically.  Even if they increase player count to 100 there's still so many nooks and crannies that players can be in that there will never be the amount of interaction that we saw across the map in the mod.

 

On top of this, looting just seems tedious rather than exciting.  Going room-to-room-to-room in Cherno apartments can take for ever and for the most part you're looking at near carbon copies of each room you look at the entire time.

 

Also, there's the point that many people have already made that there are far fewer remote areas in the woods now for people to hide camps and vehicles once persistence is working.

 

Finally, the addition of so many models and textures just takes more of a toll on server and client FPS.  While it's a good thing to make additions here and there, I wonder why it's been decided to add so many enterable spaces.   What's the motivation behind this?  Why not have only certain places enterable when adding all these new places?  

Edited January 30, 2015 by Bullet_Catcher

[soapy33@live.com 24]

IMHO I don't think making all buildings enterable was to bad of a feature, but adding all the new towns and making the map bigger was probably one of the biggest waste of resources the dev team had to offer.

 

[Accolyte 1727]

The map is still the same size, mind you. It's just objects being added/changed.

[OrLoK 16185]

The map is still the same size, mind you. It's just objects being added/changed.

Also, dont forget adding stuff to the map doesnt hinder "coding" time.

 

L

[Bororm 1156]

I partially agree with this.  It has definitely changed the dynamic of the game, right down to pvp being super close quarters focused where it was mainly mid to long range in the mod.  Arguably close quarters combat is the worst type of combat in these arma based games (some people like it, I'm not saying it's terrible but due to a combination of things it is the weakest aspect of combat).

 

I don't know that I agree that there's less interactions though.  I think forcing close proximity of players, even if there are a ton of hiding places gives rise to more social interactions if less pvp interactions.  In the mod, you could potentially see every where a person was or was going to be quite easily, as their options were limited.  This meant shooting folk was really easy and chance encounters were more sparse around towns.  I think in the SA, more situations arise where you run into some one and with added places to hide it gives the potential for a greater sense of security to actually talk to each other.  It also provides more incentive to stay in a particular town for a longer period of time for reasons other than camping, which potentially leads to more encounters.  It's all still very situational as to where you are on the map though, some towns are better than others.

 

I do agree that they've added more towns than they probably should have and I would have liked to see more focus on interesting landscapes instead.  Most of the new towns are actually pretty cool, but it just seems unnecessary to have so many.  My hope is that when barricading actually becomes a thing, where it's the preferred method of base building, that we'll see a use for these tons of structures.  You might decide to make your base out of some house in a random town.

 

 

 

The map is still the same size, mind you. It's just objects being added/changed.

 

He noted this:

 

Sure, Chernarus still has the same area in sq km, but by adding so many buildings the map has been virtually increased in size drastically.  Even if they increase player count to 100 there's still so many nooks and crannies that players can be in that there will never be the amount of interaction that we saw across the map in the mod.

 

And he's right.  The map is the same size but every enterable building that wasn't before adds more useable space.  And every multistoried building that is added likewise adds more space.

So they effectively have increased the map size.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Bororm

[wooly-back-jack 294]

I love the abundance of enter-able buildings.

 

a) go to military loot area and find it's already been looted 

b ) scour the houses and be pleasantly surprised :)

Edited January 31, 2015 by wooly-back-jack

[LORDPrometheus 21]

The expansion of new buildings is beginning to drastically impair performance so I think the current amount of buildings is enough untill rendering improvements are made

[LoveAffair 329]

I wish they doubled the size of the map , Are you kidding me , It be Bliss to not run into someone for a whole day , Who more than not just opens fire anyway.  The bigger the map the better for me. I would like to be able to make a fire in the woods at night without attracting 40 outta the 50 players on. Open every building and Double It !   :)

Edited January 31, 2015 by LoveAffair

[BadAsh (DayZ) 1513]

Every building should be enterable. We still lack that. Too many buildings are unenterable in my opinion. And enterable buildings don't decrease encounters in any way, unless you are a deaf mute. It is quite easy to recognise someone walking nearby, that you have to deal with them being in buildings just makes it more interesting than if they were forced to run out in the open around a solid brick of nothing resembling a building.

 

The only real concern I see about every building being enterable is performancewise, and regarding that there is nothing specific to say until the optimisation phase.

[Accolyte 1727]

He noted this:

 

 

Well I was responding to the poster above me who said the opposite ;)

[Bororm 1156]

Well I was responding to the poster above me who said the opposite ;)

Ahh my mistake!

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

It's the apocalypse.  You're supposed to feel alone and not run into people every 2 minutes.  Unlike the competitors, DayZ actual feels like the world has ended.

[Dagwood 680]

When the map is swarming with infected it won't feel like you're surrounded by empty nothingness. You'll be grateful to have all of those little spots to hide. And a building with a congregation of infected outside the front door will make finding other players that much easier.

[J4G 92]

I like the new approach of adding towns and buildings.

More enterable buildings for me means much more possibilities.

More possibilities means more risk and reward.

Now the smallest towns are worth to check and every house, even that single house at field, that wasnt enterable at A2, is now possible place to encounter other players. I really like that.

OBV i think that buildings should have more variety, different color variants maybe?

I do hope that focus of landscape gets more love soon and we get more unique areas like swamps at south or mountains up north.

[BC_Hawke 276]

 

I partially agree with this.  It has definitely changed the dynamic of the game, right down to pvp being super close quarters focused where it was mainly mid to long range in the mod.  Arguably close quarters combat is the worst type of combat in these arma based games (some people like it, I'm not saying it's terrible but due to a combination of things it is the weakest aspect of combat).

 

I don't know that I agree that there's less interactions though.  I think forcing close proximity of players, even if there are a ton of hiding places gives rise to more social interactions if less pvp interactions.  In the mod, you could potentially see every where a person was or was going to be quite easily, as their options were limited.  This meant shooting folk was really easy and chance encounters were more sparse around towns.  I think in the SA, more situations arise where you run into some one and with added places to hide it gives the potential for a greater sense of security to actually talk to each other.  It also provides more incentive to stay in a particular town for a longer period of time for reasons other than camping, which potentially leads to more encounters.  It's all still very situational as to where you are on the map though, some towns are better than others.

 

 

I actually would go so far as to say CQC in DayZ is horrid due to the massive amount of desync, lag, and low FPS.  Whether or not the game will ever be optimized enough to make CQC good is to be seen.  As for interactions, your point may be true in cities on the coast or right next to spawn points, but one of the main reasons I quit playing SA is because I'd spend hours roaming the map going to high value loot spots like NWAF and not see anybody.  Seems everyone is just too damned busy checking every single apartment in Cherno.  Yes, the mod version of the map certainly restricts how many places you can explore, and I'm not arguing that additions shouldn't have been made, but the massive amount of apartments/houses/buildings just (virtually) spreads people out too much.  IMO there's a much better middle ground where there's a good amount of places to explore but you find yourself needing to move on to the next town.  If some real incentive to venture inland on the map would be added to this, you'd have an increase in player interactions in areas other than just the coast.

 

 

I wish they doubled the size of the map , Are you kidding me , It be Bliss to not run into someone for a whole day , Who more than not just opens fire anyway.  The bigger the map the better for me. I would like to be able to make a fire in the woods at night without attracting 40 outta the 50 players on. Open every building and Double It !   :)

Well, here's the interesting part.  The map in the mod had acres and acres of woods and even tiny little towns in the middle of nowhere in which you can play as a hermit.  I MUCH prefer the feel of the mod map where you can isolate yourself if you want, or venture to places like Stary, NWAF, NEAF, and Orlovettes factory to meet people and get into some good action.  I quit playing SA after the 10th or so time that I went from the coast to NWAF and hung out for over an hour on a 40/40 server and didn't see a damn person either at the airfield or any of the interesting towns on the way.

[BC_Hawke 276]

I like the new approach of adding towns and buildings.

More enterable buildings for me means much more possibilities.

More possibilities means more risk and reward.

Now the smallest towns are worth to check and every house, even that single house at field, that wasnt enterable at A2, is now possible place to encounter other players. I really like that.

OBV i think that buildings should have more variety, different color variants maybe?

I do hope that focus of landscape gets more love soon and we get more unique areas like swamps at south or mountains up north.

But this isn't how it actually works out now, is it?  I would spend hours and hours in SA going from town to town to town without seeing anyone on 40/40 servers.  It was so rare to see anyone away from the coast that the game got completely boring to me.  Now, like I've said, there's a good middle ground in there somewhere, where the small houses out in the middle of nowhere are enterable and have loot, but there aren't 1,000 enterable copy/paste apartments in Cherno and other big cities they've added.  To be clear, I'm not saying that nothing should have been added, I'm saying they took it too far and added too many buildings.

[BC_Hawke 276]

It's the apocalypse.  You're supposed to feel alone and not run into people every 2 minutes.  Unlike the competitors, DayZ actual feels like the world has ended.

Strange, I don't remember typing out "every 2 minutes" anywhere.  In the mod we'll travel around and run into someone every 20 minutes or so depending on where we go.  Back when we played SA we'd roam the map for 2+ hours without seeing a damn person other than right at the coast.

[J4G 92]

I do understand your point, but i think that devs might have some ideas that we dont even know yet.

Before we know what they have mind, we can wait better sounds and better zombies,that gives way more options to find players i guess.

Sounds are essential here IMO, but sounds are way too bugged ATM.

 

BTW, do not forget that, if you looking something in dayz, theres no way that you find it before your allmost give up :D

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

Strange, I don't remember typing out "every 2 minutes" anywhere.  In the mod we'll travel around and run into someone every 20 minutes or so depending on where we go.  Back when we played SA we'd roam the map for 2+ hours without seeing a damn person other than right at the coast.

In the mod, in the mod.  Then go play the mod.  The SA is not trying to be the mod.  The SA is straying away from how the mod was and be it's own, I dunno, Stand Alone game.  I find there isn't enough buildings to enter.  There are some huge factories that are still sealed and I would very much like to see these opened.  Also, maybe you should check to see how many people are on your server as I never have issues finding anyone.

[BadAsh (DayZ) 1513]

The OP is certainly active in this thread, an all too rare occurrence. I would wish he would reply to my post as well. 

[BadAsh (DayZ) 1513]

But this isn't how it actually works out now, is it?  I would spend hours and hours in SA going from town to town to town without seeing anyone on 40/40 servers.  It was so rare to see anyone away from the coast that the game got completely boring to me. 

 

I'm not sure that has anything at all to do with the amount of enterable buildings. 

[BC_Hawke 276]

It's not the sole reason (note I mentioned above that they need to add incentive to venture to places like NWAF) but it plays a huge part.  In the mod, you would spawn in say Cherno, hit the super market, fire station, the two hospitals, maybe some industrial, and some apartments to get your starting gear.  Depending on your luck you'd get a lot of what you needed or maybe just a hatchet and some bandages.  Either way, within 15-20 minutes (depending on the action going on there), you would have exhausted the loot areas and would move on to get more stuff.  Where to go?  North.  If you spawned in Elektro this was even quicker, say 5-10 minutes and you'd start to make your way to another town.  What this meant is that you had a good chance of seeing other players in towns between the coast and NWAF as they were trying to find items like backpacks, maps, and weapons.  Pusta, Zelenegorsk, Polana, Mogilevka, Rogovo, Gorka, Pustoshka, these were all towns where you were fairly likely to run into other players on a full map.  In SA, it's the coast or practically nothing.

 

Again, there's a middle ground.  In the mod you can loot your initial town in 5-10 minutes and be headed North.  In SA you can spend 2 hours going room-to-room in all the buildings.  I feel something in the middle would have been much better as it's become incredibly boring to go inland in SA.

[gibonez 3633]

Im strugging to find the logic behind this thread.

 

Are you arguing that too many enter-able houses = too hard too loot takes to long ?

[BC_Hawke 276]

Since you asked...

 

Every building should be enterable. We still lack that. Too many buildings are unenterable in my opinion. And enterable buildings don't decrease encounters in any way, unless you are a deaf mute. It is quite easy to recognise someone walking nearby, that you have to deal with them being in buildings just makes it more interesting than if they were forced to run out in the open around a solid brick of nothing resembling a building.

 

You misunderstood my post.  It most certainly does decrease encounters in a number of ways.  I never said anything about the ability to detect which buildings people are in, it's just that there's too much square footage of buildings in the map for 40, or that matter 100 players.  People are going room-to-room-to-room-to-room in coastal cities rather than exploring the map.  Venture inland at all and you see nobody.  The map has become exponentially "bigger" because of the added structures yet player count is less than that in the mod.  Looting is tedious.  There's far too many structures which is killing server/client performance and reducing the amount of player encounters throughout the map.  Like I said, there's a middle ground.

[Evil Minion 943]

On top of this, looting just seems tedious rather than exciting.

Nobody forces you to loot every single room. Feel free to regard buildings as non-enterable for this. Sure it makes looting

Now if you look at a microscopic scale being able to enter most buildings makes for a much more interesting map layout as you got more than what is basically a maze with square obstacles in between. Different windows, floors and entrances give you several possibilities. Also it does actually add the impression of being in an authentic urban environment.

On a macroscopic scale it does make the map much bigger. Now consider the developers also scaling down movement speed to a reasonable level and you got a pretty huge map. Now one obvious advantage is a lot of space to explore and a lot of room for different map features (loot spawns, animals, dynamic events, etc.) - you can add a lot of diversity without "overcrowding" the map.
 

I do not think that it is a good thing if you are able to move to the other end of the map quickly especially when also looking for gear and supplies. Now the current issue is "running simulator" - people having nothing else to do than running for a quite long period of time. How to change that? There are multiple options:

• Increase PvE difficulty. More zombies, more dangerous zombies, envirnomental hazards, animals etc. Basically expanding the survival part to a level where it is actually challenging and keep players occupied. This basically fills empty parts with singleplayer/coop gameplay.
• Make the travel an actual travel. its long, it requires effort and you cannot do it at once. So players who wish to travel across the map will most likely travel in stages while doing something else in between. To do so there should be more options around the map so players can slowly travel from town to town (example) and enjoy the game before getting to the military bases. This basically fills empty parts with sandboy gameplay.
• Increase server population.With more players on the server interactions should be more frequent and encounter chance is increased This basically just reduces the amount of empty parts. Howeever, the impact of player count is - like most of the games dynamics - masked by abusive features (next point). As long as those are still present we will not see anything close to satisfying dynamics and in case they get dealt with the current player count might turn out to be quite okay.
• Get rid of both server hopping and freshspawn suiciding and make low population servers spawn significantly less loot. This way players cannot just teleport to the most popular places but actually have to use ingame routes thus increasing travel and the chance of contact along travel routes. Also this might increase the chances of meeting a player that is neither a freshspawn nor highly geared. There are plenty of ideas around to limit those sufficiently. Making all servers private being the only solution is simply wrong. No matter how much it gets repeated.