Realistic =/= Difficult

[OnionOfShame 138]

Hello fellow DayZ fans! This is more of a suggestion for the overall direction of the game than for something to be added. This suggestion could get a little confusing I'd you don't read the whole post, so please bear with me.

As many other players seem to realize, DayZ is intended to be a challenging, unforgiving game with a steep learning curve. Assuming that's understood I'll also point out that DayZ is intended to be realistic, often being hailed as a "zombie" (because I know they're not actual zombies) apocalypse survival simulation game. Both difficulty and realism are concepts often followed closely by people here on the forums as well. However I find that on these forums people often describe a concept or system which would increase the difficulty as "realistic" when in truth it is far from realistic. One example is the food debate.

Many a time I have seen people claiming that realistically food would be extremely difficult to come by, some to the point where surviving a day without starving to death is an accomplishment. However this is simply not realistic at all. Prepackaged food (i.e. the kind that spawns as loot right now) supplies would dwindle and become extremely rare over time, but in DayZ's setting food would actually be extremely common and easy to come by in the wild. Look for one of the threads that mentions food on the forum if you want a deeper explanation.

Another example of this phenomenon is the debate over ammunition spawns. Many people argue that ammo should be extremely rare, some to the point where looting an entire unlooted town will only give you 3-4 bullets. While I appreciate that this could make the game more difficult and interesting, it's simply wildly unrealistic given what we know about the setting. I believe that the devs stated that DayZ is taking place between a few weeks and a few months after the infection started (please correct me only if you have direct evidence from a dev's statement, otherwise it's no more credible a theory). This means that nowhere near all of the pre-collapse resources would have been used up. Furthermore we must consider the location. We know that shortly before the collapse South Zagoria was in the middle of a bloody war. This means that the amount of firearms and anmunition present in the area would be significantly amplified. How would that much ammunition, especially military ammunition, be used up so quickly? It wouldn't. Thus, it would be much more realistic if ammo is not as rare as some people suggest.

So this turned into a bit of a rant, but basically what I'm saying is, while the two can correlate, realism and difficulty are not necessarily present together. I believe that the devs should prioritize realism over difficulty where the two conflict.

[gannon46 788]

This game will go 2 ways when modding comes in it will be vanilla and then there will be modded servers i'm sure you will get your wish and have servers with more ammo and guns than you can imagine let the folks have there low ammo and low food let them have one damn server where the game is difficult because it already a guarantee that there will be easy mode 100+cars start with M4 servers which to some i guess is realistic.

[OnionOfShame 138]

This game will go 2 ways when modding comes in it will be vanilla and then there will be modded servers i'm sure you will get your wish and have servers with more ammo and guns than you can imagine let the folks have there low ammo and low food let them have one damn server where the game is difficult because it already a guarantee that there will be easy mode 100+cars start with M4 servers which to some i guess is realistic.

I didn't say that was realistic. Can you read?

[OrLoK 16185]

Play nice guys.

 

L

[star-lord252 83]

I'm glad some one understands the whole ammo thing its ridiculous in exp. The ammo is so rare mags are my main source of ammo for now. And its oddly all made in full stacks.the current system in .58 sucks still the 7,62×39mm ammo is only in military when there's more guns available for civilian same with 45 acp and some ammo is just plain stupidly balanced like shotgun ammo that is a main choice for home defence yet its rarer than an m4. I think ammo should be more common than in .59 and yet spawn relisticly meaning this here.

This is the way I think it should go.

Civilian

12-guage and slugs

9mm

22

380auto

Any other small pistol rounds upcoming.

Middle rarity

357

7.62×54mmr

308 winchester

45 acp

7.62×39mm

Rare

5.56 (only if they add an ar 15 or something like a vepr 12 or something like that idk they couldn't do it anyway for crash sites if your lucky)

Edited November 26, 2015 by DaNic2553

[Whyherro123 2283]

-snip-

I agree, but ...... in a different fashion.

 

Yes,  as I have outlined before, there would be plenty of food available in the wilds of South Zagoria. What is far too common is canned food. On this, we agree. The second the general population hears about any sort of difficulty, they run out to the store to clear shelves. Why people think they should find supermarkets stocked with food, I have no idea. They obviously haven't been through a New England winter.

 

 

Without power, anything that isn't in a can/vacuum sealed will go bad in a couple of days. The loss of power very well could have been "before" society shat the bed, and the dwindling number of survivors ate most of the other canned/preserved stuff. We don't know how long it has been since society fell apart, but in-game evidence points to 1) at least one "growing season" ( Berenzino is unkempt, but not overwhelmed), and 2) less than two years (medication, like epinephrine, and gasoline tend to go bad after 24 months of manufacture http://www.autoblog.com/2008/03/31/does-gas-go-bad/)

 

However, I have to disagree with you on ammunition. Yes, there was a Civil war in the lore, and yes, both sides would have stockpiled ammunition, but you can counter with one thing: Apocalypse logistics. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ApocalypticLogistics) With the loss of international communications and infrastructure, anything more complicated than a handcart rapidly becomes unsustainable. Advanced medicines cannot be synthesized, gasoline cannot be distilled (anything made of petroleum becomes extremely hard to get), and bullets cannot be manufactured. Approximately 99% of the mercury needed for primers comes from China. The smokeless powder is extremely hard to make outside of laboratory conditions, and basically requires both electricity as well as advanced chemistry, both techniques as well as facilities and materials. Brass, especially military-style bottlenecked cases, can only be reloaded a couple of times before they get too weak. You can't really fire a pure-lead bullet from a modern firearm, as "leading" will occur. Do you know how to jacket cases?

 

Chernarus has a national firearms company, Chernarusk Zbrojovka, which would presumably have reloading facilities and materials, but, since it isn't in South Zagoria, those materials and tools might as well be on the moon.

 

Not even including that modern cartridges deteriorate over time, especially under not-so-ideal circumstances. A couple of cases of Soviet-surplus 7.62x39mm stashed in a barn (getting damp, getting cold, and getting hot, not to mention the caustic properties of the surplus round) by the CHEDAKI is ..... not going to be so good. Case (heh) in point: a couple of years past, after my granddad died, we took a couple of bricks of .22LR ammo to my local Scout camp, so the Scouts could shoot for cheap. The rangemaster fired some, looked at the rest, and refused the lot. He even offered to dispose of them safely. The powder had deteriorated to the point where they almost didn't propel the bullet out of the barrel, the primers were iffy, and the cases were so weak they tore upon extraction. The bricks weren't even that old: less than 2 years, and had been dry and safe the whole time. 

 

I have always wanted Day Z to be "different" in the sense that loot really shouldn't "respawn". That is, there is plenty of loot in the "beginning" of the server, but as time goes on, the spawn rate gets less and less, to the point where "prepackaged" loot is rare. In the beginning, there would be plenty of food, both canned and fresh, plenty of clothing, plenty of bullets, and plenty of meds, but as it gets used up, it is "gone", for lack of a better term. Sure, you could have loot respawn, but it would be caches found in out-of-the-way spots on the map, not fresh magazines in the middle of the NWAF.

 

Also, loot would naturally deteriorate over time. Fresh/unpreserved food goes bad and rots, canned food can harbor Botulism if it gets damaged, bullets degrade depending on the environment, magazine springs wear out if constantly under tension (you aren't "supposed to" keep a magazine loaded for a long time, as the springs wear out), and medication loses effectiveness. Yadda yadda yadda

 

What does that mean for the game?

 

It means both the "CoD-kids" and the "backwoods survivalists" could actually play the same game. Early, there would be plenty of ammunition, meds, and so on for the reckless PvPers, and later on, the survivalists could have fun. It would also give " a reason" to band together. Your clan could set up a base where they turn out new ammunition, or prepare for a "scavenging run" to the cities to look for materials for crafting. Etc etc etc

[Red_Ensign 990]

ok say a similar catastrophe strikes your country, and you're leaving to go somewhere you hope is safer.  what would you leave behind in your house?

 

ammo?  FUCK no.

guns?  maybe if you have too many to carry or after the ammo runs out.

food?  you'd take all you can carry that won't spoil, and what you can't carry you'd eat as much of as possible before you leave.

[OnionOfShame 138]

ok say a similar catastrophe strikes your country, and you're leaving to go somewhere you hope is safer. what would you leave behind in your house?

ammo? FUCK no.

guns? maybe if you have too many to carry or after the ammo runs out.

food? you'd take all you can carry that won't spoil, and what you can't carry you'd eat as much of as possible before you leave.

The only places you could find a significant amount of ammo would be a gun shop or a military base, and your point does not apply to either of these. And even for houses, do you think every single person who happened to own a gun in the entire country just happened to be home when the collapse started? Because I shouldn't need to explain why that's illogical.

And for food, I'm referring mostly to "natural" sources of food i.e. hunting, foraging, and farming. I agree that prepackaged food should be rare, much rarer than it is now. But the part of the world South Zagoria is based on has more than enough naturally-occurring food sources to make searching prepackaged food unnecessary.

Edited November 27, 2015 by OnionOfShame

[Konfucious K 183]

Considering the geographic location and cultural norms in the area we are lucky to have as many weapons as we do. You'd be lucky to find one firearm for every ten houses in "reality". USA is the only place in the world with such a high frequency of weapons and ammunition.

 

As for food, if you've ever worked in a supermarket you would see that the stock would not last a few days let alone a week before being virtually depleted. Non-perishables, chemicals and cleaning/bleach isles would probably have SOME stock left but the rest would be gone before the "apocalypse" would even start up properly. Naturally growing resources would not be maintained and be picked or die off quickly and animal live-stocks would be depleted within the first season as no laws or systems would be in place to control populations. Not to mention the infected would likely kill them too. Rats and birds will probably flourish - there is a good source I suppose.

 

One thing I would say though, there should be a lot more crashed/abandoned delivery trucks and cars along roads which should be a good source of supplies and at least some farmhouses should have working shallow wells with suction pumps as they generally have independent water systems.

[Red_Ensign 990]

The only places you could find a significant amount of ammo would be a gun shop or a military base, and your point does not apply to either of these. And even for houses, do you think every single person who happened to own a gun in the entire country just happened to be home when the collapse started? Because I shouldn't need to explain why that's illogical.

 

it's an epidemic not a meteor strike

[fing24 36]

What no 1pp servers on this build?

[iClown 29]

1 week to 1 month after the infection and there are still perfectly yellow bananas laying around in storage units... totally realistic... xD Tactical Bacon is real... its only like 20 dollars a can... some rich guy must have been running from zombies all across chernarus with that stuff spilling out of his bottomless pockets... his wife and kids and their chinese butler were dropping rice and spaghetti o's and canned peaches lol realistic indeed

[blackberrygoo 1416]

I think you're getting things confused ... Sure a bunch of people are trying to argue realism into those debates , but for those of us who have been in these arguments extensively , we've all decided that food and ammo should be scarce, not for realism purposes but for gameplay purposes ... If you can find a hundred bullets in one area along with ten cans of food will there be any incentive to do anything else but sit there and wait for a kill?

So overall, I think you have the right idea that bullets and food wouldn't just disappear, but ultimately you missed the whole revolution of gameplay VS realism debate that basically puts the whole realism factor to the back shelf in regard to ammo and food , placing more importance on gameplay factors rather than realism arguments (which still reign King In many other dayz arguements though !).

[mercules 1290]

Reality is a bad word to use and a bad aim to have. I believe the prefered term by the DayZ devs is "authentic". Authentic allows for gameplay balance and immersion to work hand in hand. For example you want food to be scarce but not so scarce that 95% of the game is spent gathering food. You want the player to work for it, but not to the point where they become too frustrated to play.

The main issue is that we ALL have different points as to where that is. I have no issue with looting a few seeds and growing food, visiting an apple tree, or looting feathers and crafting a bow to hunt with to stay fed. I do have an issue with it being EASIER to find canned food and fill up than it is to find feathers to craft a bow which still doesn't feed me till I can assemble it and find an animal. Finding 10-20 shotgun rounds is easier than finding 10-20 feathers, less risky, and likely takes about the same amount of time but in the former case you are also able to find other gear while getting the shotgun rounds.

See, that is partially an authentic experience(I would argue feathers need to be more common than bullets). A realistic experience would not see me able to craft a bow and keep it in usable condition in the manner I do in DayZ. :)

[roguetrooper 201]

The insane amount of food and water that you need to consume is rediculous. Even when you are extremely hungry and thirsty, you can't eat three cans of beans and drink three litres of water... which you have to repeat after three kilometers of walking.

[sneakydudes 278]

The insane amount of food and water that you need to consume is rediculous. Even when you are extremely hungry and thirsty, you can't eat three cans of beans and drink three litres of water... which you have to repeat after three kilometers of walking.

You said it! 4 cans of food within 30 minutes to 1 hour real life time is horrible.

 

1 can of food should last a person 1 full day, in a survival game. currently everything i eat / catch gives me sickness. Drinking from ponds the same problem. So we don't.

I understand many of the things we are going through are test phases, but i really hope they don't put in the food water consumption like this. We all have these arguments in arma 3 too.

[raigprime 47]

This game will go 2 ways when modding comes in it will be vanilla and then there will be modded servers i'm sure you will get your wish and have servers with more ammo and guns than you can imagine let the folks have there low ammo and low food let them have one damn server where the game is difficult because it already a guarantee that there will be easy mode 100+cars start with M4 servers which to some i guess is realistic.

You hit the nail on the head. Modding should be an end-of-life option for DayZ. The type of thing you introduce when the title needs to be re-invigorated.