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

[Jex 1104]

Do we need a storage warehouse in a zombie apocalypse? I don't think we do. Tents in the mod were perfect. You could hide them pretty well but they would still never be invisible unless you used glitches to hide them in rocks. Plus they offered a reasonable amount of storage space, certainly not too much for their size. Tents in standalone are simply awful.

 

Tents is SA are horrible. The placement mechanic looks so shoddy, the colour and shape, just everything about them spells "wrong". I have only seen videos of the tents, never used one yet but from what I've seen I'm not impressed. Where on earth are you going to "hide" a blue tent since the countryside has all but vanished? People think they can hide a tent - I can tell you that probably isn't the case unless you find a glitch. Having extensive experience from the mod in finding little bright green tents you could place anywhere, the bigger tents are going to be easier for 2 reasons - 1) You can't place them exactly where you want, the game decides that for you (awful mechanic) and 2) Hardly any places left to put them.

 

Bring back stashes please! FFS we want a place we can hide our shit - how the fuck can the devs NOT know this???

 

Also, searching 100 nearly identical rooms to find an item can get really tedious vs searching 10 rooms to find the same item. I can definitely see where the OP is coming from. I think the game would have benefited more from fewer, but more varied new buildings/places.

 

It needs a ton more buildings and the north is totally fucked now. Ran along it with my mate and the wilderness has gone, the hills have gone, it just kind of goes flat. It's still a good map regardless of the rape, don't get me wrong it's just shittier now but could have been better.

[brzator47@gmail.com 524]

Bring back stashes please! FFS we want a place we can hide our shit - how the fuck can the devs NOT know this???

I can't for the life of me figure out what they're trying to do with these tents to be honest. They almost don't even make sense as placeholder items. It's only the people who have never played the mod who think these tents are going to be of any use if you want to hide anything. Empty servers are going to be the only way which is BS.

 

It seems the devs have always considered the north to be "wasted space" and got a bit carried away copy pasting buildings/towns.

[archamedes 238]

I like that they are adding newer and bigger buildings, we have to remember this map was originally meant to be played as a military simulator, where most if not all the action happened outside and all the buildings were merely only decoration. Look at the old arma 2 apartments, compared to the new ones. look at how huge the prison complex is, I literally got lost and still found more areas i missed earlier. Also the leaked screens of the new high school, which will hopefully replace the current school. loving the fact that they are thinking of bigger and newer buildings to make the game deeper and have more life. I only hope they make a newer bigger hospital with different departments, unlock that big warehouse building that was open in arma 2 which is actually closed in dayz sa. In general there are huge buildings they could potentially add that players could get lost or hide in, like a walmart style supermarket. Even a chernobyl style abandoned theme park

[Jex 1104]

I can't for the life of me figure out what they're trying to do with these tents to be honest. They almost don't even make sense as placeholder items. It's only the people who have never played the mod who think these tents are going to be of any use if you want to hide anything. Empty servers are going to be the only way which is BS.

 

It seems the devs have always considered the north to be "wasted space" and got a bit carried away copy pasting buildings/towns.

 

I can't figure it out either but once everything is working good, I won't need to go to the bases or airfields because if tents are the only way to store things, I will find yours and I will take all your gear lol :)

[skypig 139]

stashes! yes!

I don't want a tent screaming "Here I am!!"

I want a stash that doesn't say a damn thing.

[BC_Hawke 276]

Not sure if addressed but I think I might be able to shed some light on the OP as there seems to be some confusion.

 

If you have a million rooms in a town, the chances of you meeting another player is next to zero, simply because you can easily miss each other and that is probability for you. If you have less rooms, the chances go up right? So the OP is saying that because of so many enterable buildings, the chance to miss other players is increased which makes sense.

 

If each town had only 5 buildings to loot, the chances of seeing another player as you come into town is incredibly high. Make it 100 buildings and you can see the chance lowers itself. Also, some of the buildings we would all flock to in the mod (Can I say stores are next to useless now?) don't hold the same value as they used to, decreasing the chance of player encounter further as we spread out because any building can have something we want :)

Exactly.  IMO they should have added interiors to most of the existing buildings, added some cool POIs and expanded some towns and cities a bit, and spent a GREAT deal of time on really cool details to reinforce the apocalyptic feel.  Instead we got a bunch of new towns and cities, drastically reduced forests, 100s if not 1,000s of copy/pasted rooms and houses, and only a few details like blood smears and wrecked cars to make it look like an apocalypse happened.

[Jex 1104]

Exactly.  IMO they should have added interiors to most of the existing buildings, added some cool POIs and expanded some towns and cities a bit, and spent a GREAT deal of time on really cool details to reinforce the apocalyptic feel.  Instead we got a bunch of new towns and cities, drastically reduced forests, 100s if not 1,000s of copy/pasted rooms and houses, and only a few details like blood smears and wrecked cars to make it look like an apocalypse happened.

 

To be fair to the devs, the "apocalyptic look" should be coming after the map is finished so we need to wait and see but I'm with you on the copy/paste crap. They've been working on the map an awful lot too - in all that time, they could have done what we wanted and made a better map with POI to head to which could mean player encounters and more unique buildings?

 

50 cities which all look the same just spread the players out so much it's ridiculous and I don't know what they're trying to achieve with them/

[jedslather 4]

Like it as it is, would like to have a larger map and places to go, a cabin in the woods, able to craft a camp and so on.

[Whyherro123 2283]

To be fair to the devs, the "apocalyptic look" should be coming after the map is finished so we need to wait and see but I'm with you on the copy/paste crap. They've been working on the map an awful lot too - in all that time, they could have done what we wanted and made a better map with POI to head to which could mean player encounters and more unique buildings?

 

50 cities which all look the same just spread the players out so much it's ridiculous and I don't know what they're trying to achieve with them/

Because it is realistic. Take a look at the Svetlo-Novo-Severo- (now Toploniki) line. Look at the area on a topographical map. 

 

 

What do you see in the area I mentioned? A FUCKHUGE river valley. That region should (and, thankfully, is) the most heavily settled part of the map, for one simple reason: ease of agriculture and industry.

 

According to the ARMA II lore, South Zagoria (the region of Chernarus we play in) has human settlement as far back as 500 BC. People tend to stick to and migrate up rivers from the coast, as rivers make for effective, easier farming. On the flipside, rugged mountainous areas, like in the southeast corner of the map, tend to stay lightly settled (until there is some resource to exploit) due to the difficulty of farming and travel.

 

Want wilderness and seclusion? Go to the area between Nadezhdino, Tulga, the Black Forest, and the Topolka Dam. This is a rugged mountainous area that covers roughly 1/3  to 1/4 of the map, depending on how you look at it. A couple of lives ago, I spent about 2 weeks chilling in that area on a full 40 pop server, and only ran across about 5 people (all bambis, and all lost)

 

Placing your tents and stashes around the edges of the map (AKA "the wilderness" of the mod) is cliche, predictable, and foolish

[Beizs 186]

Enterable buildings are great. What I think needs to be done is to increase the variation in buildings, set up a few prefabs for each buildings interior and change it all up a bit. Personally, I feel like the new towns, while nice, weren't particularly good for what you're talking about - and they've caused other issues like deforestation and the stripping of depopulated areas on the map, which are important to DayZ.

 

I don't know though, I definitely want every single building and every single room to be enterable.

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

To be fair to the devs, the "apocalyptic look" should be coming after the map is finished so we need to wait and see but I'm with you on the copy/paste crap. They've been working on the map an awful lot too - in all that time, they could have done what we wanted and made a better map with POI to head to which could mean player encounters and more unique buildings?

 

50 cities which all look the same just spread the players out so much it's ridiculous and I don't know what they're trying to achieve with them/

What are you expecting? A little China area, an area like New York, an area like Zimbabwe? Go have an actual look at the topography of the area Chernarus is based on and you'll realize the devs have actually done a stellar job.

[Bororm 1156]

I can't figure it out either but once everything is working good, I won't need to go to the bases or airfields because if tents are the only way to store things, I will find yours and I will take all your gear lol :)

 

 

I can't for the life of me figure out what they're trying to do with these tents to be honest. They almost don't even make sense as placeholder items. It's only the people who have never played the mod who think these tents are going to be of any use if you want to hide anything. Empty servers are going to be the only way which is BS.

 

It seems the devs have always considered the north to be "wasted space" and got a bit carried away copy pasting buildings/towns.

 

 

I think the idea is that you don't hide your base any more, but instead there will be ways to secure it.  How they'll work that out will be interesting to see, it's an extremely difficult thing to balance but I feel that's the road they're headed down.  So you won't be trying to hide a tent, you'll be building walls/fences and making a fort/base.  With booby traps and locks and what not.  That's the impression I get from the devs talking about it and the items/mechanics we're seeing implemented.

 

I also think that when it comes to "hiding" stashes it's going to be more barricading some off room in some off building in the middle of these towns no one cares about.  People already bypass all the apartments for the most part, imagine if you could lock one of the rooms and lock your crap inside a cabinet or whatever.  It might not be the most secure thing ever, but it's gonna at least give people reason to start checking those and give them a purpose.

 

We saw in the mod that no matter where you hid your tent (glitches aside) it was never safe any ways.  So it makes sense that the focus isn't on hiding your stash, but securing it.

Edited February 12, 2015 by Bororm

[-Gews- 7443]

I think the idea is that you don't hide your base any more, but instead there will be ways to secure it. How they'll work that out will be interesting to see, it's an extremely difficult thing to balance but I feel that's the road they're headed down.

 

Given that most players spend, on an average day, what, 22-24 hours offline... yeah...

[PongoZ 127]

There is so much different then the mod it is kind of a huge leap for the OP to say that the extra rooms have the effect he says.

Vehicles make the map smaller in the mod, zombie sentries that only show up when there is someone close to them makes finding people to kill way easier.

 

the map is far better the way it is, except I liked the extra belts of dark forest that used to be on the bottom 1/3 of the map but have been filled in. Leaving the coast in the dark trying to get back to the middle where your dudes gear was used to be more exciting.

 

But I do not think there is any correlation between number of rooms and dificultiy finding people.

Drive a truck up the middle of the map, people will find you. Shoot a few flares...

[BC_Hawke 276]

There is so much different then the mod it is kind of a huge leap for the OP to say that the extra rooms have the effect he says.

Vehicles make the map smaller in the mod, zombie sentries that only show up when there is someone close to them makes finding people to kill way easier.

 

the map is far better the way it is, except I liked the extra belts of dark forest that used to be on the bottom 1/3 of the map but have been filled in. Leaving the coast in the dark trying to get back to the middle where your dudes gear was used to be more exciting.

 

But I do not think there is any correlation between number of rooms and dificultiy finding people.

Drive a truck up the middle of the map, people will find you. Shoot a few flares...

So drastically increasing the size (explorable area) of the map while having a 40 player limit (less than the mod) has no effect on player interaction across the map?  Really?

[Jex 1104]

Because it is realistic. Take a look at the Svetlo-Novo-Severo- (now Toploniki) line. Look at the area on a topographical map. 

 

 

What do you see in the area I mentioned? A FUCKHUGE river valley. That region should (and, thankfully, is) the most heavily settled part of the map, for one simple reason: ease of agriculture and industry.

 

According to the ARMA II lore, South Zagoria (the region of Chernarus we play in) has human settlement as far back as 500 BC. People tend to stick to and migrate up rivers from the coast, as rivers make for effective, easier farming. On the flipside, rugged mountainous areas, like in the southeast corner of the map, tend to stay lightly settled (until there is some resource to exploit) due to the difficulty of farming and travel.

 

Want wilderness and seclusion? Go to the area between Nadezhdino, Tulga, the Black Forest, and the Topolka Dam. This is a rugged mountainous area that covers roughly 1/3  to 1/4 of the map, depending on how you look at it. A couple of lives ago, I spent about 2 weeks chilling in that area on a full 40 pop server, and only ran across about 5 people (all bambis, and all lost)

 

Placing your tents and stashes around the edges of the map (AKA "the wilderness" of the mod) is cliche, predictable, and foolish

 

Well the part where the sea is, in rl, is actually a river and so what if it's realistic. Not all things realistic = good game play or good map design. Seriously, what gives? Why is it better to have 30 cities instead of 20? Good maps offer variety which is being eaten up.

[Jex 1104]

What are you expecting? A little China area, an area like New York, an area like Zimbabwe? Go have an actual look at the topography of the area Chernarus is based on and you'll realize the devs have actually done a stellar job.

 

I'm expecting some creativity. The map maker did a stellar job with the original map and it was noted as such. The maps is still great except for the inclusion of so many more "urban areas" and if the two of you think there's wilderness left, try looking at the old heat maps for days and you'll see there really isn't a lot of places people don't run and even less places to hide things.

 

Why do we need so many cities?

[Jex 1104]

I think the idea is that you don't hide your base any more, but instead there will be ways to secure it.  How they'll work that out will be interesting to see, it's an extremely difficult thing to balance but I feel that's the road they're headed down.  So you won't be trying to hide a tent, you'll be building walls/fences and making a fort/base.  With booby traps and locks and what not.  That's the impression I get from the devs talking about it and the items/mechanics we're seeing implemented.

 

I also think that when it comes to "hiding" stashes it's going to be more barricading some off room in some off building in the middle of these towns no one cares about.  People already bypass all the apartments for the most part, imagine if you could lock one of the rooms and lock your crap inside a cabinet or whatever.  It might not be the most secure thing ever, but it's gonna at least give people reason to start checking those and give them a purpose.

 

We saw in the mod that no matter where you hid your tent (glitches aside) it was never safe any ways.  So it makes sense that the focus isn't on hiding your stash, but securing it.

 

Well they spoke about building an underground base in it's own instance - I hope they're sticking to this.

 

Once people know where people start to hide things, they'll go looking in those places. A town might have 100 buildings but during the course of the day or week, each of them will be checked and any door found locked or boarded up is going to be broken into. Once this happens, where are you going to hide your gear next and why bother collecting a bunch of tools for your own use if you come back in a few days and it's all gone. There should never be "safes" where nobody can get in but players need stashes that aren't going to be found in a week.

 

You may think there were no places to hide a tent but there were a few that never got found ;)

[Buffaloe 87]

  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.

 

That's exactly the way i feel about dayz at the moment. Playing the game currently feels not like playing but more like collecting loot by yourself, which is pretty damn boring.

What makes this game shine are the player interactions, however now that there are large towns everywhere you can run around for ages not meeting anybody. It's a horribly depressing experience when you realize that after running around for 2 hours hoping to get actual gameplay and fun you ended up doing absolutely nothing but running.

 

That said, I don't think enterable buildings are the main problem. On the contrary, I think those are great, and shouldn't be missed in a modern day game. The actual culprit is the extreme increase in effective map size. Sure, the map may be as large as before in square kilometers, but the amount of areas that are actually worthwile to visit has drastically increased.

The only way I can see things change is by a massive increase in player numbers per server and maybe new means of transportation. However, I am unsure whether high player numbers will be possible given the current server performance, and even then there'd still be a need for actual players to fill these servers.

Edited February 12, 2015 by Buffaloe

[Jex 1104]

That's exactly the way i feel about dayz at the moment. Playing the game currently feels not like playing but more like collecting loot by yourself, which is pretty damn boring.

What makes this game shine are the player interactions, however now that there are large towns everywhere you can run around for ages not meeting anybody. It's a horribly depressing experience when you realize that after running around for 2 hours hoping to get actual gameplay and fun you ended up doing absolutely nothing but running.

 

This is weird because for me, if there's 3 people on the server I always seem to run across them lol

 

The other day I was trying to meet with my friend (BTW get a mate to play with - FFS I can't stress this enough!) so I was on the coast and ran into those small cafe's. It was dark and there were about 15 other players on the server. As soon as I ran through the door, this other player was also running through it at exactly the same time. We passed each other, I crapped my pants and ran around the inside (he was outside) and said "Hello" and he said "hi" back. He seemed friendly enough so I said "You scared the shit out of me" to which he replied the same and we both just laughed our asses off for about 30 seconds.

 

Another time, my mate and I trying to meet up and he's on the coast. He's running along those raised planks that go over the marshes and he sees another player coming towards him. They just ran passed each other, looked over their shoulders and kept on running. Didn't stop or attack or say anything, just probably amazed at the coincidence since other than us two, he was the only other guy on the server LOL.

 

I frikkin bump into every one when there's 3 people on the server. The other night, I'm running down a road at night, minding my own business, 3 other people on the server when the only guy with a truck drives by me. Then 2 minutes later, drives back passed me again! Yeah, I waited for him to come back a 3rd time lol but he didn't.

 

I've been killed so many times because I saw so few people on the server and just assumed the map is huge I won't run into them.

 

The coincidences in this game are freaky. It all started after my first visit to.......

 

 

*looks around then says in hushed tones*

 

 

 

 

......green mountain

[PongoZ 127]

So drastically increasing the size (explorable area) of the map while having a 40 player limit (less than the mod) has no effect on player interaction across the map?  Really?

I never said that at all. What a strange kind of logic you use. I said many things have changed that will impact the issue. Some much more so then the nooks and crannies of the buildings.

[emuthreat 2837]

To be fair to the devs, the "apocalyptic look" should be coming after the map is finished so we need to wait and see but I'm with you on the copy/paste crap. They've been working on the map an awful lot too - in all that time, they could have done what we wanted and made a better map with POI to head to which could mean player encounters and more unique buildings?

 

50 cities which all look the same just spread the players out so much it's ridiculous and I don't know what they're trying to achieve with them/

I'm pretty sure that they are just stuffing the map with copypasta buildings to see how it works out.  Once they get everything in the game, and all of those extra doors and loot spawns prove that they don't break the servers, they can easily swap out models and change interior furnishings.  If they drop the ball on polishing the final product/failing to create anything significantly different from the mod, there will be at least 90 million dollars worth of refund demands bogging down Steam.  Anything less than a spectacular finished product will likely lead to the biggest fraud lawsuit in the history of electronic entertainment.  With this much time spent on the game already combined with the amount of cash that the early access sales brought in, there will be hell to pay if BI can't produce an exceptionally excellent finished product.  And I'm confident that they can and will do exactly that; regarldess of being held over a giant barrel of pre-sales.

Edited February 16, 2015 by emuthreat

[BC_Hawke 276]

I never said that at all. What a strange kind of logic you use. I said many things have changed that will impact the issue. Some much more so then the nooks and crannies of the buildings.

 

I do not think there is any correlation between number of rooms and dificultiy finding people.

[liquidcactus 719]

I cant believe there is actually a topic post about this...bullet catcher, it seems to me this really is nit picking..  

 

The more enterable buildings make the game 10 times better I think.. Thats all i wanted in the mod.. was to be able to enter more than 15% of buildings in a town.. I guess I'm the exact opposite to you.. since the same buildings were met over and over again in the mod the risk was alot high entering an area to try for supplies.

 

Why does it always have to be about interaction ? I love the fact there is so many buildings and it may create less interaction with players.. if I'm on the look out for other players.. I will scope the town center from a 2nd or 3rd story building... I love all the nooks and crannies... I think when the game is alot harder maybe you will be able to appreciate all those nook and crannies for hiding and stashing equipment... The SA is also a advanced version of the mod, it needs alot more substance in everyway possible

 

Think of the bigger picture also... when persistence is enabled and working properly, I'm sure you are going to want alot of enter able buildings for loot stashing behind locked doors. Think about when barricading is in place also... arent you going to need a good selection of of houses to choose from ? Of course you will and you know why ? because everyone else will be doing the SAME! Finding your own little slice of heaven for stashing your shit away from everyone else's is going to take some time and effort to create. Furthermore, the game is really hard in the first place.. you need all those places for searching loots.

 

Trust me you will see and understand why all buildings are enterable further down the track, I promise you that.  

Edited March 4, 2015 by liquidcactus

[WolfgangErikson 127]

Once proper Zombies are introduced, I think you will see a rise in player interactions. I know in the mod, most of the times I encountered players was when I was forced to fight off zombies.

 

Zombies in the mod were great at revealing your position to other players and vice versa. 

Edited March 4, 2015 by WolfgangErikson