NEW Suggestions and Tweaks

[Rice Jones 0]

First of all, I love this game, I'm a huge zombie fanatic, and I would love to see DayZ be the TOP open world survival mmo.  Here are a few of my detailed tweaks and suggestions for DayZ. I hope you guys take the time to read and keep up the good work!!  Please feel free to leave comments and contact me if needed.

 

1. The 0.55 Infected AI is great, but it could use some tweaking.

1a.) The Infected needs sound while in "aggressive" mode.  It's weird seeing them chase me and not making a sound.  Also, some of the infected head's turn slightly weird while chasing players.

1b.) Infected AI speed needs to be tweaked. They can catch up to players while we're at full sprint, but they can never seem to get us.  To me, that seems inconsistent.  If the infected can catch up to us at our full sprint, then that means they are faster than us and should be able to get us while we're running. The infected should only be able to match our top speed, which mean they should never be able to catch a player if they're at full sprint.

1c.) As the Infected AI get more aggressive, clothing durability should go up more.  It's a pain to have to continously replace clothing after a few suprise ambush from zombies.

1d.) I would also love to see some zombies actually grab survivors. I don't know who started the whole zombies punching out survivors in videogames (not Bohemian), but that's just not the case in movies and lores. They want to bite and eat the living. There should be a grab/struggle mechanic, which would be great because you can also add a "Bitten" death mechanic to the game, which players have to worry about as well.

1e.) Silencers are a great weapon against the infected, however, the infected still aggro when another infected dies within their area, thus defeating the whole purpose of using the silencers.  Silencers right now are only useful for PVP because of that mechanic.  In order for silencers to be viable for PVE, the infect has to no longer aggro when you kill another infected in the area.

 

2. Reaslistic Character needs. 

2a.) Because DayZ offers a unique realistic 24 hours day cycle in the survival mmo genre, the character's need for food and water should be a bit more realistic as well.  According to survival guides, you can survive 3 days wihout water and 3 weeks without food.  However, players usually play for hours at a time and not 24 hours at a time.  Fear not!  There are ways of getting around that and still make this game challening when it comes to food and water.

2b.) While playing for a few hours, the threat of dying from stavation should be bare minimal.  However, the danger of dehydration is still very real.  Because you're traveling great distances, sprinting, performing manual labor, also while carrying full gear, staying hydrated should be the number one focus in game.  

2c.) Food and water should work like a "buff", which it already kind of is right now.  Being energized should help you heal faster from blood loss, keeping hydrated should help you sprint longer and stay cool, and being healthy helps you fight off colds.

2d.) As far as how to make food and water more important in a 24 hours cycle game, I think when a player logs off for more than 3 days, their character should be thirsty by the time they log back in.  And if they log off for 2-3 weeks, their character should be starving and thirsty.  They won't die while players are logged off, but basically, hunger and thirst persist over time even in between gaming session. This does two things, keeps players playing DayZ and and make it challenging at every log in.  Unless players wisely keep food and water in their packs :). 

 

3. DayZ needs basic MMO controls.

3a.) Auto-Run/Toggle Sprint: This is a large and impressive map and can take a long time for players to cover.  There should be an auto-run/toggle sprint button.  There are occasions when traveling long distances, players find themselves hold up to 3 buttons. ( I know there is a download for the auto-run, but why leave it up to a third party download?  This feature should be in-game already.  And third party uncertified downloads may contain virus and adware.)

3b.) Jump: Every good mmo needs a jump button.  Having a jump also gives players tactical advantages.  I would suggest making the "Spacebar" jump, so that players can jump/vault over fences, and occasionally onto cars to escape from persuing infected.  Thus moving the "Raise Weapon" button from spacebar to the "V".  Because the "Raise Weapon" button is rather useless, except for RP and everyone knows that the "Spacebar" is for jump :D.

3c.) Vehicle controls still need tweaking.  I find myself openning and closing doors several time before be able to get the option to start the truck. Vehicles should automatically turn on when a player enters the driver seat (unless out of fuel) and turn off when the player exits. The action bar should change into "driving mode" so that players can use the 1-9 buttons for option pertaining vehicle operation (turning on lights for example).

3d.) With the new aiming reticle, I would like to see a "Hold Breath" feature, like when you go to double tap then hold right mouse button, your character will hold their breath and have a steady aim for a few short seconds, depending on their health and how winded they are.  The hipfire reticle movement is fine. Players shouldn't have accurate aim firing fromt he hip.

 

4. Other tweaks and suggestions.

4a.) PVE Servers: Turn friendly fire off on some servers. I've seen servers claiming to be friendly, but people still KoS and snipe random players. I guess it's because some people have itchy trigger fingers, some are untrusting, and other just like to troll. Either way, you give players guns and give them a map, they think they have to kill every other player they see.

4b.)  Item stacking needs to be improved.  Rags are small and shoud be able to stack maybe 15+ in 1 inventory slot.  We should be able to stack crafted arrows like the composite arrows, both should be about 10+.  Matches chould be combinable.  The match box in game are the same ones I have in my house, which holds 500 matches. But if you want to lower that number down, 100+ is good, but we should be able to combine new matches with old ones.