Stable Branch - 0.55 Discussion

[krisfx 11]

Should of fixed persistence  before forcing it to all servers. Looted Cherno and all i found was heat pack and crow bar.

 

You got lucky! - I managed to find absolutely fuck all and starved to death. When I did find a tin, I opened it and it disappeared leaving me starved to death. On the plus side I have found almost all varieties of hat, so that's good. 

[HarryPotter (DayZ) 172]

It's an early access alpha game. That should tell you all you need to know about it. They shouldn't need to carefully word everything they say simply because the testers of their work-in-progress can't be bothered to understand what it is they are getting themselves into.

I want to be clear that I'm not attacking you personally, because I do see where you're coming from. It's just really hard to sympathize with anyone who gets involved in testing a game without understanding the process before they get started.

Yeah I get you mate believe me and I'm not saying everyone needs to have this explained but there are some people on here who find the concept difficult to grasp..!

[galekast 70]

Sounds like a lot of you don't play on low enough ping servers, can't find a low ping server, or your connection is crap.

 

Meh.

I generally play on servers with below 60 ping average and my internet connection is rather good, I still get the desync, lagging and telekinetic zombies... However, I get the impression that is not something that is going to be fixed by ping although it probably doesn't help those with higher pings. 

Personally I am enjoying this update up to a point.. As others have stated, the hitboxes/animations/speed of the zombies and their innate ability to hit you anyhow and anywhere is rather frustrating, especially when you appear to be out of range or have dodged successfully. But, they are moving in the right direction, the increased numbers make stealth play a must in towns and cities and even the odd village can be treacherous if you aren't careful.. The lack of footsteps is doing my head in but hopefully that can be hotfixed or patched next time around so we can hear them at least. Their stamina system is fantastic, making them run for a while drains them and allows you to drag an entourage around with you which is a lot of fun! I have found they are glitching through doors a lot more though that may just be desync not catching up with their position after I shut them in somewhere. However, I am yet to actually manage to lock one in anywhere due to this which is rather frustrating. 

 

With regards to loot, some of it seems very random, however, I managed to find a PM 73 Rak or whatever it is called and a mag in one police station in the north of the map so I was rather ecstatic as I had never seen the gun before! Food and drink is not as scarce as people are saying, its just not available on the coast. After I ran in land from Berezinho, I hit Kraznostav and found nothing and just about made it to Gvodzno while starving and found some food and drink there fortunately.. I am all for the scarcity of food but that does need to be balanced out a little.. As I didn't find a projectile weapon of any sort until Severograd, hunting was out unless I made a bow. Unfortunately I didn't find a hatchet until Gvodzno and by then I had enough food to last me a little while. So while the scarcity of food to force growing and hunting is a good inclusion, the fact is the materials to be doing these things are nigh on impossible to find early on and will probably be only found in land, meaning that by the time you make it somewhere like that you will either be starving/dead or be in a village where you can just find food anyway. There is going to need to be something done with this as spawning in with a relatively small window of time before you starve and there being a distinct lack of canned food or tools/weapons to make your own food means a lot of people will be dying very, very quickly.. And thats not taking into account I never found a canteen, pickaxe, seeds or any cooking utensils or matches on the whole run that I did so I wouldn't have been able to cook or grow a damn thing. A little balancing would be nice, but I am liking that the deer stands are now worth visiting most of them time!

 

But overall, I am quite excited for the future, a lot more polishing is obviously neccesary and I know these are only the early implementations of the systems they are putting in place, however, everything is developing rather nicely in my opinion and in a few updates time I am sure the stuff they have put in place today will be running a lot more smoothly..

 

I do agree however, that performance has taken a hit.. Going into Severograd dropped my fps to 29 roughly and that I was not pleased about.. I haven't those numbers since an overloaded Epoch server on my old AMD processor! My 4790K 4.4 should be dealing with that a lot better than it did today, but I guess Alpha is Alpha and that will eventually be sorted up to a point too.. But this update has definitely hit the performance a bit and I feel for anyone running an older rig at the moment as it must be a frustrating time! But this is what we are here for, checking it all out, giving feedback and the such like :)

Oh, and try luring a group of 10+ zombies out in to the wilderness with you, when they all start slowing down its fantastic.. I managed to get them spread out in a line like they were arm in arm marching down the road and loved every minute of it! Its like watching one of those zombie walks people do :)

 

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

You got lucky! - I managed to find absolutely fuck all and starved to death. When I did find a tin, I opened it and it disappeared leaving me starved to death. On the plus side I have found almost all varieties of hat, so that's good. 

 

 

Pick red berries by the half dozen to stay out of the red in hunger/thirst while you move North.

 

Start with that tactic in mind from the beginning.

 

Take some time to try to grab a few immediate things but don't go too far without gathering berries so you can keep moving.

 

The further North you make it, the more likely you'll find loot right now.

[HarryPotter (DayZ) 172]

Discussing semantics wont change anything.

Besides, when you purchased the "game" you knew you were gonna log into a load of unfinished stuff.

Back to Hogwarts Harry!

Yeah you are probably right (wasn't really saying it for my benifit though)

[krisfx 11]

Pick red berries by the half dozen to stay out of the red in hunger/thirst while you move North.

 

Start with that tactic in mind from the beginning.

 

Take some time to try to grab a few immediate things but don't go too far without gathering berries so you can keep moving.

 

The further North you make it, the more likely you'll find loot right now.

 

That's the first thing I tried, couldn't find any. The problem lies with everyone spawning in the same place. 

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

That's the first thing I tried, couldn't find any. The problem lies with everyone spawning in the same place. 

 

The spawn points likely will not change much.

 

They want you to struggle Northward to possibly find what you need just to survive.

 

DayZ started as hard mode in the mod and will be completed at harder mode 20 months from now.

 

One day, when you find that can opener.... you'll hear angels sing!

 

SURVIVAL.

 

The struggle just got more realer.

Edited April 1, 2015 by BioHaze

[ebrim 998]

Stop fighting the zombies unless you're in a position to survive getting smacked around a bit, avoid them. Also, don't try to melee them in packs, things have changed so adapt. If you're really desperate to go in, build a bow early on or some other ranged weapon.

[barnabus 1708]

I, too, had my reservations about the switch. Now I actually like the new one more. 95% of the time you don't even see it.

Lucky for us the experimental version is rarely what we see go to stable. 

[krisfx 11]

The spawn points likely will not change much.

 

They want you to struggle Northward to possibly find what you need just to survive.

 

DayZ started as hard mode in the mod and will be completed at harder mode 20 months from now.

 

One day, when you find that can opener.... you'll hear angels sing!

 

SURVIVAL.

 

The struggle just got more realer.

 

I've been playing since the mod, I know how it goes. The point is, as people have already said, why force a broken system? Don't release it to stable if it's not working, otherwise what's the point of having experimental and stable branch?

[Red_Ensign 990]

yeah, so after literally 45 minutes of clicking on a berry bush, I got myself up to energized and hydrated.  server resets.  next server, I'm starving to death and dying of dehydration.  really?

 

I'll come back next patch.

[HarryPotter (DayZ) 172]

yeah, so after literally 45 minutes of clicking on a berry bush, I got myself up to energized and hydrated. server resets. next server, I'm starving to death and dying of dehydration. really?

I'll come back next patch.

Did you go from pub to priv or change between priv servers etc?

[Red_Ensign 990]

One change I think most people (hardcore and casual players alike) will welcome - zeds are easier to spot and identify from a distance now because of their idle roaming. No more confusing one with a bush, lamppost or a survivor or plainly missing them (especially at night) because they stand still.

 

As always, observing a location from a safe vantage point before looting is strongly advised. Now more than ever.  ;)

 

you say that like you won't starve to death in that 5 minutes.

[raptori 13]

Heli crash and police car doesn't respawn after restart , is it intended ? it suppose to be the only dynamic event that provide good weapons.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Raptor_i81

[Red_Ensign 990]

Did you go from pub to priv or change between priv servers etc?

 

nope

[Surviv0r1969 151]

THINK IT HAS BEEN TURNED UP A  little too much, i mean 5 head shots with a fire axe to kill a zombie, 1 was too easy but think 2 would be a better number

[demi 2]

This patch is absolute bullshit

[demi 2]

Forced persistence and hard zombies = certain death, starving to death and bleeding out before you can find a rag or a can of beans.

[cash81 506]

I'm holding on to hope that my rig is still good enough to play. I was lucky to get 35fps in the wild. So im assuming ill have to spend 1500$ to get back to 35fps or just wait until the final product shows up in the next couple years.

[insolicious 24]

First of all, these are my personal thoughts and experiences I gathered today, so here are my impressions of the first day in 0.55 stable, collected over roughly 6 hours on a private hive server. We've been traveling from Cherno over Balota (including airfield), Pavlovo military base, Pavlovo, Zelenogorsk, Myshkino tent city, Pustoshka, Green Mountain, Vybor Military Base, NWAF, Grishino.

 

Food & Drinks

 

It is possible to achieve food. Food even spawns in single locations with up to 5 or even 6 cans, however this is very, very rare and mostly does not happen in the high traffic spawning areas. We've tried horticulture a bit but the quick status decrease of farming hoe's made it very tricky. Mostly they were gone to ruined after digging a max of 10 holes. In addition horticulture is not a way to survive right after respawn as it takes way too long to collect proper seeds and everything else you need to make it happen. I was able to find quite a few bottles and a few coke/sprite/etc. Actually I found up to 2 or 3 in single locations in almost every town. However the big traffic makes it hard to find them and limited space in the beginning was really an issue if you try to carry goods that make you survive the first 30 minutes. The last thing to say about it is that the formerly known structures where you used to find food and/or drinks, are not the same anymore. It has become very random and makes it hard to choose priority targets in bigger cities.

 

Clothing

 

Clothing is achievable if you are lucky. A mate of my group spawned in Cherno and wasn't able to find a thing after looting half of the city. In the end he was fighting with a guy for a pink wool dress which he remained victorious. Once you reach the zone outside the spawning areas you tend to find more loot here and there. The funniest thing actually happened in Myshkino tent city where we found a truck with around 4 full pairs of police clothing and everything that belogs to it. However I haven't found a single piece of military jackets like Gorka or TTSKO.. but I'll take on that topic again in my summarize about military loot.

 

Ammunition & Guns/Weapons

 

It's a bit the same like Clothing, you are able to find it.. here and there. The only thing I haven't ran into the whole evening tho were axes, which makes me wonder how a freshspawn should survive in a proper way. (More to it in my final summarize). We've found about 50 shots AKM/SKS (30 in an 30rnd mag), about 20 AK74 bullets, a bunch of shotgun shells, 30 rounds of magnum, a shitload of .22 and winchester rounds and not a single round of ak101/m4! (More about it in my MIlitary loot summarize). In the run we've ran into about 10-15 weapons from pistols like 1911 to a total of 2 SKS, 1 Mosin and 1 AKM. In the end this is not very much, considering that we've played on an average private hive with about 35-45 people on it the whole time.

 

Military Loot

 

We were able to spot a single russian chopper with an AK buttstock and a boonie inside. Considering that we looted every single Military building from Chapaevsk up to the whole NWAF, we didn't find a shit. Most barracks and Prisons were emtpy or contained a little of food, some medical stuff like the 100th painkiller, little clothing like hunter pants or wool dresses (mostly in tent cities), but what worries me the most: no Gorka/TTSKO clothing, almost no weapons or mags and especially not a single round of 5.56 NATO ammunition. Considering that we've been starting with one M4, 2 AK101s and an AKM, this is really unacceptable. I really hope this changes in the next days, because in its current state, the 0.55 built loses all attraction of the northwestern military areas. I'm not sure if the aim of the current built is to force fresh spawns to fist each other down and eat human flesh, just to survive a few more minutes till you find something of use or ultimately starve to death or die to diseases. I'm personally focussed on military gear most of the time as it offers alot of utility and I also like the risk of visiting those areas with my teams, but if the loot cycle is intended as it is and should stay like that, it's not even worth losing the hydrated status with running so many kilometers. But hey... at least we found about 10 tents on our way north.

 

Zombies

 

Most has be said about them. They are challenging, even in a fully geared state. They are overwhelmingly fast and hit quicker than ever before. This makes it almost impossible to survive as a fresh spawn, unless you get ridiculously lucky. Once you spawn, the timer of starvation starts and depending on position you have to make quick choices. You can go slow ways, search for berries, apples and everything else, but this is not saving you the whole day. There comes a point when you need to visit a city and there the dilemma starts. Once you reach the first Zed, you start to panic. If you're lucky you can lock him down in a building but as they tend to bug through walls and are extremly fast, this rarely works. You're bleeding very quickly and taking many hits makes your screen blur mostly after encountering the first Zed. Honestly, I'm not a fan of the current Zed-build as you're unable to deal with them in proper ways. They take up to 3 hits with m4s and AKs and up to 5 hits with a firefighter axe. Mostly you're unable to avoid hits, unless you get a lucky doubletap into the Zeds face with an axe or something. In our well-geared state we decided to make the aggroed person kite the zombie and shoot them while they were chasing. This was working somewhat ok over the whole evening but at the end my mate accidently shot my shoulder and ruined my Gorka jacket while I took a nap on the ground. Unless you run with them for about 30s-1m they don't get exhausted and shooting them while they're chasing is a risky deal, especially as your gun is also shaking. You rarely encounter them while having a break. If i think about hordes of Zeds... well.. good night. Run or die, no matter what gear... and don't forget to pray.

 

Overall summarize

 

We've been running a group of 5 people, starting with 2 fresh spawns and 3 fully geared people. Gathering the fresh spawns was hard work and making them survive even harder. When they reached us they were starving and almost dead already. One of them had to spawn 3 times until he made it into our direction. Mostly they were forced to fight inside Elektro/Cherno for any loot there was left or forced to think about cannibalism, which we avoided as we picked them up with a few supplies we had stored. On our way north we've encountered about 10 foreign people and none of those encounters was good. People actually feel attached to banditry more than ever before as they either realize they need the supplies or are afraid to lose their own gear. That's the reason we ended up losing 2 people till Zeleno and another one in Vybor, finishing the NWAF run just two of us remaining. I personally think the survivors suffer from the current loot economy as even fresh spawns tend to run around in cities and chase each other, demanding them to stop running as they need their flesh. Is this really how it should be? It's almost impossible to get basic equipment to go for the lone wolf in the woods either... The moment you have to get food/drinks or die is comming very quickly after spawn.. you mostly can't sit down and think about it for an hour. Once you move north you have to consider every living beeing hostile and moving/acting accordingly. Even if you manage to surive the trip north, you get disappointed by risking your life a dozen of times to find empty barracks and prisons, while the tent cities are filled with garbage. So what does this game give me in this built, except the urge to run in as a freshspawn, avoiding the power ranger mutants that eat you for breakfast and punch down any other fresh spawn, just to be entertained before you die of starvation. Well.. think about it.. in my honest opinion, this stable build is far away of what the average alpha tester should take.

[odin_lowe 3686]

No, he is not. Harder zombies? Ok, not a problem, but not when:

- zombies still can beat shit out of you trough walls/doors (I see him outside, yet game think he is inside) and now they can ruin your clothing with one hit (I just said bye bye to my M65 jacket, it was pristine and then zombie hit me once)

- zombies are laggy as hell

- then can hit you without actually facing your or reaching you

There should be more zombies not stronger zombies.

And wtf they can open doors now? They are running like retards, but somehow know how to open doors? What next? Zombie driving V3S or shooting mosin? It's just plain stupid idea.

Another thing: Why they force persistence when it don't work properly? You can find mp5 mags, rak mags, etc. etc. but there is no food. Actually I see same thing I saw after 1st iteration of persistence: a lot of useless crap, books, tents, etc. but no food. Food is as always is stacked in one little shed in the middle of nowhere. I visited mili base just seconds after servers started. There was no gear in long barracks (literally 2 pair of books and 3 bullets 5.45mm). Yet near destroyed ACPs there was like 2 or 3 AKMs. few mags, 2 mountain backpacks, few boxes of bullets and a lot of camo clothes. It was just after servers started! So persistence is as broken as it was months ago.

It's not the AI or "zombies" the problem, everything you stated concerning the infected is related to netcode, latency and desync. Once the server architecture and netcode gets polished, you'll see these problems disappear. Until then, I'd suggest playing on low ping server, with the lowest bandwidth you can. (No wi-fi sharing or downloads in the background for slower connections.)

 

The persistence, global economy, loot tables and general loot mechanics are all work in progress so it's not as much as "forcing" something rather than creating it. They're not making experimental builds or stable patches to have us play the game, they're making it and we have access to the software while it's being programmed and created. We can clearly see how much it impacts development to have to make a somewhat stable build game so that people can play it. If anything having a functioning multiplayer game slows down the creating process, but, that's the way it is...

[odin_lowe 3686]

I can't contain my joy when hearing people whine about dying in the apocalypse, due to the infected attacking them, or not finding food.  :rolleyes:

 

Even though it's just temporary for the current "broken" loot, I love it and can't get enough of the current scavenging. It feels more "apocalyptic".  ;)

 

Better enjoy it while I can cause it's bound to change anyway!  B)

Edited April 1, 2015 by Odin Lowe

[cash81 506]

It's not the AI or "zombies" the problem, everything you stated concerning the infected is related to netcode, latency and desync. Once the server architecture and netcode gets polished, you'll see these problems disappear. Until then, I'd suggest playing on low ping server, with the lowest bandwidth you can. (No wi-fi sharing or downloads in the background for slower connections.)

 

The persistence, global economy, loot tables and general loot mechanics are all work in progress so it's not as much as "forcing" something rather than creating it. They're not making experimental builds or stable patches to have us play the game, they're making it and we have access to the software while it's being programmed and created. We can clearly see how much it impacts development to have to make a somewhat stable build game so that people can play it. If anything having a functioning multiplayer game slows down the creating process, but, that's the way it is...

 

 

but isn't that the point of having an experimental branch? to experiment with it? i am assuming all the feedback was super positive to what everyone is playing now in order to have them move it to stable? so this is everything the exp guys wanted then?

[BleedoutBill 1636]

It's not the AI or "zombies" the problem, everything you stated concerning the infected is related to netcode, latency and desync. Once the server architecture and netcode gets polished, you'll see these problems disappear. Until then, I'd suggest playing on low ping server, with the lowest bandwidth you can. (No wi-fi sharing or downloads in the background for slower connections.)

 

I'm saddled with a crummy DSL connection, so I've had to do this all along. It definitely minimizes these issues. It doesn't "fix" them, but it does bring them to a tolerable level.

[odin_lowe 3686]

but isn't that the point of having an experimental branch? to experiment with it? i am assuming all the feedback was super positive to what everyone is playing now in order to have them move it to stable? so this is everything the exp guys wanted then?

Nope. Experimental branch isn't about anything we want, it's only about acquiring data towards general progress of development. It just helps globally towards making a more stable experience overall, not just for the "stable" branch.