"My stomach grumbled violently"

[herbivorethegoat 6]

Guys, I need to know if I'm doing something wrong here. I've played DayZ for a long time, mostly the mod version. When I start the game, I go about as normal, but I can never find food or water. None of it. I would just walk around wearing cool clothes and having good melee weapons, but not a single bit of food anywhere. I search houses, apartment buildings, even a supermarket and I never find a single can of anything. I literally go on sprees of spawning, finding good gear and starving to death because there's no food anywhere. Am I doing something wrong here or is the food spawn rate just ridiculously low? I'm actually hearing about people wanting there to be LESS food so I think I might be doing something wrong.

[tiadashi 262]

Let me guess your on the coast?

[S3V3N 1402]

I actually had some problems with the health system at first too, coming from the mods. It's really not that complex though, basically think of it as a meter:

 

hunger:

starving-----hungry-----neutral-----energized

thirst

very thirsty-----thirsty-----neutral-----hydrated

body

dying-----sick-----neutral-----healing-----healthy

stomach

growling------neutral-----stuffed

 

This is very simplified and probably half wrong, but somewhere along those lines is how I explain this system to myself. So it is not as simple as in the mod. Being healthy depends on several systems that are all linked. Let's say you are stuffed from eating an entire package or rice and some milk powder (both of which make you very thirsty). You might be "energized" and "stuffed" because your stomach is full, yet you will be thirsty, because you ate all the dry stuff. If you drink now, most likely you will start puking (because you are stuffed), which causes you to lose energy and diminishes the effect of having eaten all those calories before. It's good to keep the hunger and thirst in the green (hydrate and energized), because then you won't have to worry abourt outbalancing one or the other.

 

If you cannot find food, you should change servers or try to find a truck and drive around, until you come across some villages with loot. With the rollback to the old loot system came along the loot explosions, so while there are places that may be almost empty,there are others overcrowding with food and gear. The holiday villages all seem to spawn a decent (to ludicrous) amount of gear and food. So I recommend heading towards one of those to gear up. This is all gonna change again soon when the central loot economy is brought back.

 

When you are fed and healthy and have some patience, you could also go along the coast road, as I always find at least one truck there. People seem to run out of gas in odd places and after the restart the trucks are refueled and ready to go. I promise that with a truck you will never go hungry, because you can quickly check out a town and move on when you find nothing there. The two public servers I play on both spawn a decent amount of loot, but only one of them seems to have the loot explosions.  

Edited April 23, 2015 by S3V3N

[herbivorethegoat 6]

Let me guess your on the coast?

I'm pretty sure you meant it as a joke, but incase you're actually serious, no. I search everywhere, buildings, sheds, ect. I even explored the whole of Elektro and didn't find anything once.

[herbivorethegoat 6]

I actually had some problems with the health system at first too, coming from the mods. It's really not that complex though, basically think of it as a meter:

 

hunger:

starving-----hungry-----neutral-----energized

thirst

very thirsty-----thirsty-----neutral-----hydrated

body

dying-----sick-----neutral-----healing-----healthy

stomach

growling------neutral-----stuffed

 

This is very simplified and probably half wrong, but somewhere along those lines is how I explain this system to myself. So it is not as simple as in the mod. Being healthy depends on several systems that are all linked. Let's say you are stuffed from eating an entire package or rice and some milk powder (both of which make you very thirsty). You might be "energized" and "stuffed" because your stomach is full, yet you will be thirsty, because you ate all the dry stuff. If you drink now, most likely you will start puking (because you are stuffed), which causes you to lose energy and diminishes the effect of having eaten all those calories before. It's good to keep the hunger and thirst in the green (hydrate and energized), because then you won't have to worry abourt outbalancing one or the other.

 

If you cannot find food, you should change servers or try to find a truck and drive around, until you come across some villages with loot. With the rollback to the old loot system came along the loot explosions, so while there are places that may be almost empty,there are others overcrowding with food and gear. The holiday villages all seem to spawn a decent (to ludicrous) amount of gear and food. So I recommend heading towards one of those to gear up. This is all gonna change again soon when the central loot economy is brought back.

 

When you are fed and healthy and have some patience, you could also go along the coast road, as I always find at least one truck there. People seem to run out of gas in odd places and after the restart the trucks are refueled and ready to go. I promise that with a truck you will never go hungry, because you can quickly check out a town and move on when you find nothing there. The two public servers I play on both spawn a decent amount of loot, but only one of them seems to have the loot explosions.  

I understand the health system, I've played DayZ for a while. It's just the pure inability to find anything. I search every building I come across and there's never any food or water in them. I would likely starve before I find a truck, anyway. The only way I can get water is to be lucky enough to spawn near a well, but I still die of starvation later. I've also tried changing servers, but I never find a single bit of food on any of them.

[JPWiser 251]

I even explored the whole of Elektro and didn't find anything once.

Elektro is on the coast tho....

[S3V3N 1402]

Go north from Elektro to Topolka Dam to "kometa" holiday camp. Let us know if you find nothing there. If so, I believe loot spawns on that server are broken. You can serverjump in that area to figure out how it looks on other servers. Just be careful, there are usually 3-4 zombies there. 

[herbivorethegoat 6]

Go north from Elektro to Topolka Dam to "kometa" holiday camp. Let us know if you find nothing there. If so, I believe loot spawns on that server are broken. You can serverjump in that area to figure out how it looks on other servers. Just be careful, there are usually 3-4 zombies there. 

Well, I would but I constantly starve to death before I can even figure out where I am.

[stinkenheim 249]

loot spawns on private shards were messed up with the first iteration of .55 loot system, they have the ability to turn the persistence off allowing loot to spawn on server restarts so if the server you play on is private they may not have done this.

Otherwise I am really struggling to believe that you can';t find anything at all. For a start water is easy to get, simply go to a well, drink and hey presto- water.

As for food, the first house in this list http://dayz.gamepedia.com/Residential_Buildings?cookieSetup=trueis superb for food. The brown house normally serves me well too, failing that- apple tree or even farming

[odin_lowe 3686]

Instead of searching every building, you'll need to learn which building spawns what. But by then, the loot system will have changed and you'll have to re-learn everything again...  :P

 

That's what I do, and love about DayZ in it's current changing state.

 

Best food you can get is rice, powdered milk and canned peaches. I mostly don't even bother with tactical bacon, spaghetti or other canned foods unless I need a drink and I don't have another supply of water. Beans, tuna and sardines are a great source of water, but not much on the caloric value.  

 

Good luck on your journeys ahead! There's really not much help you can get other than learning how to play really. The learning curve is in constant evolution right now. 

[BCBasher 2465]

Don't sprit unless you have to you move a little slower but make it farther.

[juice_ (DayZ) 4]

You should stick to the mod version, this game is dying fast with its "lol hardcore" mentality and dwindling population with less then 10 full servers during primetime wich was unheard of a few months ago.

[Conrad_The_Comrade 577]

You should stick to the mod version, this game is dying fast with its "lol hardcore" mentality and dwindling population with less then 10 full servers during primetime wich was unheard of a few months ago.

The player count also drops because other games that are "fully functional" being released (A perfect example being GTAV). Just because people go off playing other games doesn't mean we lose them. People can't sit around playing the same thing for a long time, especially one that's only half done as of now. Once the game goes into beta, people will return. Once the game is fully released, people will return. It's just how things go. This doesn't mean that the OP shouldn't enjoy him/herself because their aren't tons and tons of full servers. You only need so many for people to be happy.

[BeefBacon 1185]

Just head inland. Check a couple of buildings if you happen to spawn in or near a town, and if you find items then stay, but if you find nothing of value in those few buildings then jog (don't sprint) inland until you find another settlement. Spend a little time there. If you still find nothing then go further inland.

 

You can also try picking apples and red berries. It takes a little while, but if you get energized then you'll have plenty of time to find good loot. without worrying too much about starving.

[herbivorethegoat 6]

This is good advice and all, but I mean I literally CANNOT find anything. I search the buildings that spawn food and ignore the others, but still I don't find a single can no matter how long I search.

[cash81 506]

Just head inland. Check a couple of buildings if you happen to spawn in or near a town, and if you find items then stay, but if you find nothing of value in those few buildings then jog (don't sprint) inland until you find another settlement. Spend a little time there. If you still find nothing then go further inland.

 

You can also try picking apples and red berries. It takes a little while, but if you get energized then you'll have plenty of time to find good loot. without worrying too much about starving.

are blue berries bad in.54? I know when the wasteland servers were all the rage in .55 i ate tons of blue ones and never got sick.

[therandomredstone 432]

You should stick to the mod version, this game is dying fast with its "lol hardcore" mentality and dwindling population with less then 10 full servers during primetime wich was unheard of a few months ago.

Dying fast? You mean increasingly growing.

 

Your liking for the game might be dying fast, but with all that is to come in this next year, older players and more new players will join the Standalone community even more than before.

 

666 Hail Hall.

[cash81 506]

This is good advice and all, but I mean I literally CANNOT find anything. I search the buildings that spawn food and ignore the others, but still I don't find a single can no matter how long I search.

Change servers until you find one that has loot. May take a few (or dozen) tries if certain servers havent changed since the roll back.

[Excanto 336]

Guys, I need to know if I'm doing something wrong here. I've played DayZ for a long time, mostly the mod version. When I start the game, I go about as normal, but I can never find food or water. None of it. I would just walk around wearing cool clothes and having good melee weapons, but not a single bit of food anywhere. I search houses, apartment buildings, even a supermarket and I never find a single can of anything. I literally go on sprees of spawning, finding good gear and starving to death because there's no food anywhere. Am I doing something wrong here or is the food spawn rate just ridiculously low? I'm actually hearing about people wanting there to be LESS food so I think I might be doing something wrong.

This is really following along with my current thinking.  I went thru a town and left all the garbage, I came by later and even the garbage was gone, everything was gone. Someone picked up and dropped every item to tag it for despawn. I'm just not sure if they are doing it to try to ruin the game for others or they are horders that have brought their disorder to the game? Who would take 14 hard hats? Who would take 13 beanies and 12 pipes and 7 wrenches and 10 hammers? Why am I finding food, guns, ammo, clothes, vests, magazines over against the walls of military bases in the bushes?  If you don't pick up the can of food it will stay there till someone takes it or if someone picks it up and drops it, it will despawn after an unknown to me amount of time.

[BCBasher 2465]

This is really following along with my current thinking.  I went thru a town and left all the garbage, I came by later and even the garbage was gone, everything was gone. Someone picked up and dropped every item to tag it for despawn. I'm just not sure if they are doing it to try to ruin the game for others or they are horders that have brought their disorder to the game? Who would take 14 hard hats? Who would take 13 beanies and 12 pipes and 7 wrenches and 10 hammers? Why am I finding food, guns, ammo, clothes, vests, magazines over against the walls of military bases in the bushes?  If you don't pick up the can of food it will stay there till someone takes it or if someone picks it up and drops it, it will despawn after an unknown to me amount of time.

 

I'm not sure if it did or still does but I've seen videos claiming by moving stuff a certain distance from its spawn you can trigger or continue a loot puke area. In .54 I was on a persistent public server and it seemed to me if I "took out the trash" by bagging it and moving it a kilometer away or to a non persistent server it caused new stuff to spawn.  

[too-easy 56]

Like others said: get away from the coast. Elektro is still the coast.

I played yesterday and found loads of food. That was in the north center of the map. One of the newer cities, don't know the name.

Even as a new spawn I just head inlands. Haven't starved to death in this game yet and I've been playing it for more than a year.

[slywether 28]

I've been hanging out north of the tracks, and find metric craptons of food on a regular basis.  Along with that, once you get bright green energized hydrated and healthy, you can pretty much stay that way indefinitely by periodically stopping at the overabundance of apple trees for a minute or so to eat an apple or two.  A few moments to stay healthy permanently goes along quite well with the slowed down methodical surveillance of a town for infected, purposely and surgically avoiding them without conflict scenario that is the current stable. YMMV.