What is your honest opinion on the future of DayZ

[karlkurtz32 59]

I took about a 6 month break.  Came back recently and am pretty disappointed.  No players to engage, not many zombies to evade, loot seemed very boring and repetitious. Not a whole lot seems to be changed at all.  Honestly though, I haven't been following the development process so I'm sure I am unaware of a lot of small changes.  I guess after half a year I just expected more.

 

Whats the general consensus?  Are people giving up on this game or is there still reason to believe it will soon be something worth playing?

[Red_Ensign 990]

there's all of those things you could want if you go where they are.  don't be mad when you find nothing in the middle of nowhere.

[PongoZ 127]

lots of cool stuff, good direction way disappointing pace. 

[Whyherro123 2283]

Hoo boy

 

On the one hand, I still believe that , given enough time, Day Z can eventually be the game that "everyone" can enjoy; the survivalists, the lone-wolves, the clan gang-bangers, and the people that like to run around in dresses. There is enough space throughout the entire map that everyone can literally do whatever they want and not ever have to stumble across other people.

 

On the other hand, I am, and have been, "losing faith" in Day Z as a "survival game" for a while. Every patch, new guns get added, new "military things" get added, new vehicles, fucking helicopters and RPGs, yet we have had the same old shitty medical system, and a complete and total lack of any real "survival" mechanics, for basically more than a year now. The "game" isn't difficult, hasn't been for a while, and even when it gets even slightly-difficult (granted, the difficulty was a result of bugs, but the point remains the same), the forum gets flooded with posts like "WAAAAHHHH LOOOT iZ 2 HARD" " WHY CANT I FIND FUD" " NO BULLETS ANYWERE GAEM SUKZ". Annnddd... the game was rolled back.

 

Depressing.

 

I only really play the game every couple of months, whenever a new patch gets released. I play for a few days, get bored with the unchanging mechanics, and go play something else until the next patch.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Whyherro123

[Just Caused 423]

In my honest opinion, developers are not doing their best. They are doing good work, but with budget that DayZ made and head-start DayZ made begin first real apocalpyse survival simulator, they should be doing much much more. If they don't know how to fix this stuff, hire someone who can. They may be trying, but with this small proggres we are rapidly ( cooling off ) falling back and giving other DayZ copies take the first place.

[emuthreat 2837]

Vehicles were recently added; with another layer of functional complexity.  They were bugged as shit at first;  now they are only kinda bugged as shit.  FAL is new, powerful and cool, but lack of optics attachment ATM is kinda laming up the thing.  Still a hell fun way to clear out Myshkino tents, but I wouldn't use it for anything dangerous.  <~~Implies that zombies still aren't anything to write home about.

Edited January 17, 2016 by emuthreat

[Salty seadog 125]

Honestly I feel this game is heading in the wrong direction, having just gone back to the mod and also some arma 3 exile, im fairly disappointed. The mod is great when you find a good server and people arent exploiting stuff, but where i feel the mod could have improved, SA has missed the mark in a lot of areas. 

 

If i summed up recent/all play sessions in both, basically i never end up having a whole lot of fun in the SA no matter what i try to do. Whereas every time i play the mod, i get into firefights all around the maps i play on, maybe some cool heli side gunner fights, killing a load of zombies that i felt i actually HAD to kill, attacking bases or being attacked, and doing missions which is extremely fun when the balance of AI and PvP is just right. The mod feels alive. Standalone feels like a COD shooter at spawntowns, and the other 90% of the map feels stagnant. 

 

Standalone has become a 95% loot collection simulator and all of the fun stuff that happened in the mod never happens here. You either run around a spawn town playing a weirdly unbalanced shooter, or roam the rest of the map which is a ghost town.

 

I am concerned because nothing in this game drives truly random/organic player interaction like making 1000 spawn points and spreading out players. Instead its just wait at the bambi funnel with a geared group.

 

There is no reason to kill zombies and they haven't designed anything in the game to force some of these situations, like having some high end loot at the end of a quarry full of zeds, maybe an oil rig with some crashed chinooks with mil gear but you have to clear the rig, something to drive a need to kill zombies.

 

It would have been cool to see helis with door guns or humvees with 50 cals, I can completely understand not putting in tanks and thermal junk though, hell i wouldve really liked if there was some AI missions (i guess thats gonna come with mods)

 

Im also extremely concerned about the progress of zombies and getting the numbers up and also the fact that they still dont really look that great and seem very clunky. Standalone has to succeed in this, and fixing the horrendous desync issues before anyone can start piling mods onto the game. I am also concerned about the time its taking to get there, and it wouldve also been cool if mod tools had come out before the game, so some of us wont have to wait another year or two to play the type of servers and mods we want. 

 

 

I dont really want to play for 8 hours solely trying to get a car running, Im not saying i want everything handed to me, but pretty much every single thing you can do in this game is... Search X building for Y parts to build Z. 

 

I want Standalone with  100s of different  AI missions, Harder survival mechanics (needing to fish or hunt and stockpile foods) Some cool armed vehicles that arent OP, reasons to clear out places full of zeds, hordes that swarm your base, ammo not to be silly rare, GREAT base building, predator animals and also trainable dogs/wolves/falcons, Radois that were actually useful, new completely original places to explore or preferably a new map, fully random spawns (spawning in as a random character in different conditions/health) better netcode, bullets to be a little more lethal (more so the bolt actions) more crafting options, ability to carry a full backpack in your hands at the cost of speed.

 

I can understand that some people like this play style, but to be honest i think most people dont because theres far more people playing the mod, anyway thats just my thoughts on it. That said i know its an alpha so ill just have to wait and see what the finished product is.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Salty seadog

[S3V3N 1402]

I'm confused by the development. It's contradictory. First they announce that beta will start in Q2, then they say new elements will still be added during Beta; adding new features is what the Alpha is for. And I wouldn't worry, if at least the features in the Alpha were working well enough on the first or second (or third iteration). Yet so much is still not working well, even though it's been in the game for a year. So that makes me think, they might take a game with many broken features to the next stage, which will then present its own problems and slow down progress again. Essentially I don't see the difference between the Alpha and Beta, at this time.

 

There are a lot of different economies in the game and we've never seen them as intended, yet. They don't all come together, because of all the resources required. The new renderer and occlusion technology are surely gonna speed things up - but is it going to be enough? And then there are random deaths and the afore mentioned broken medical system, which can leave you unaffected by illness or kill you off in a matter of minutes. Things like these worry me to no end.

 

At the same time, I see parts of the team doing great work on improving the map and creating great-looking assets. But what are we to do with these, if the game cannot be tested in its fullness. It's such a unique project that I'm almost ready to say: tune it down a bit, devs! The helicopter isn't going to be the endgame and if it doesn't work right, it won't be worth the hassle repairing one. The endgame should be human interaction, which means to me: make it meaningful! Work more on soft skills and learning curves to let us develop unique characters and let us have the ability to prove useful to other players instead of being just targets or enemies. I don't want the game to be all cozy and friendly, but to me the key to Dayz is making a player's life valuable. Through cooperation and improvisation things should be possible that aren't possible on your own.

 

I have some confidence that in the end we'll see a game that works well enough, but I'm not yet convinced we'll actually see the game that puts us in a threatening enough situation to make us seek help and shelter and pray for our bare life. I'm really somewhat clueless about Dayz at the moment. On the one hand I enjoy fighting with other players, but on the other hand I feel like the fighting shouldn't be over nothing or a couple of guns or other material items. The true fight should be about survival and sometimes having to make a hard choice, instead of an easy one. And that fight is still a long way off and if it will ever come, Dayz would probably be a lesson in life much more than only a game.   

Edited January 17, 2016 by S3V3N

[sneakydudes 278]

I'm confused by the development. It's contradictory.

I am too.... and so is 99% of the rest. Even Mr. Hicks is confused. The only 1 person that isn't?? is the guy they hired sitting in the kitchen eating all the frigging donuts...

 

and the funny thing is?

 

They still don't know his name!!!

[Pandema 352]

Expecting nothing means that when something happens, I'll be pleasantly surprised. But if it crashes and burns I can go "Told ya so".

 

 

Started off super optimistic and hyped about SA, but now it's 2016 and DayZ updates are more surprising to see than Terraria updates.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Pandema

[DemonGroover 8836]

It is sometimes hard to be patient but great things are coming I am sure.

There is still no other game that gives me that feeling of complete paranoia than DayZ does.

Edited January 17, 2016 by DemonGroover

[NickyN 1]

There is still no other game that gives me that feeling of complete paranoia than DayZ does.

 

Meh. DayZ mod was fresh and new when it came out but got boring after a while. SA was fresh and new but for even shorter amount of time and they didn't capitalize on it. If they ever make it to something resembling a fully released game it'll be long after the hype for survival games. It was looking good in the beginning but now after all this time? Not so much.

[Noctoras 409]

pretty bleak. It seems the future work will mostly be around the engine. i.e. apart from a crippled skill system I do not expect a lot.

 

Leaves us with

 

- a non working survival system

- an unused medical system

- zombies which simply are no threat

 

The game as it stands is a PvP shooter, for which the map sitze is just too big. The survival element as a whole could be abolsihed. It's only taking time and geared players have too much food, drinks and everything anyway.
As for realism, the inhabitants of Chernarus probably eat weapons. At leas I tend to find more weapons than food items around Chernarus.

 

Quite frankly, I don't hold my hopes high anymore, the current state of game is too broken. In addition to that, devs seem to be scared to add new elements, instead in many aspects they just copy stuff from DayZ Arma.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Noctoras

[Espa 711]

I haven't been a part of this community for as long as a grand majority of a lot of you, but I've put a lot of my valuable hours into it because I really enjoyed the potential of it. . Of learning new things and how the system works. But over time, my personality in the game has gone from seeing someone and automatically being SO happy and trying to initiating friendships - to being an outright killer. . It's been a hard lesson to learn because in general I WANT to feel attached to my character AND to have an ounce of care for others' as well. - But truly the only fun I even have on the limited time I spend here now is really either running alone for hours on end, being murdered without any reason, or straight up killing others myself.

 

The worst thing about DayZ at the moment is the utter lack of care I have for my own life, besides the stupid, predictable, atrociously available gear that is completely inconsequential, and the complete lack of desire to even raise my voice any longer. The only thing left to do in the game that has any real feeling to it is murder. And honestly, if I want to just play a distanced shooter, Battlefield 4/Hardline is better.

 

Until the Devs really surprise us with the actual shit that this game promises (Zombies that are a serious threat, Actual Survival depth, Base Building) it is absolutely weak and simply not a good product.

 

I have hope that maybe this game will eventually develop itself out. . The question is, will anyone even give a damn by the time they've got their shit together?

 

I hope the Devs read all of this and respond in kind. . Or all the time any of us have put in has truly been a waste.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Espa

[Bororm 1156]

I've been playing since a few months after the mod released.  I had a great time on the mod and I've had a great time on the SA.  The issue with early access is that the game has time to get boring, and essentially being the same game at its core (although the SA has some really great improvements) as the mod, it's doubly easy to get bored of the SA.  So I take little breaks (not many I'm glad to say) and then enjoy it again.

 

I think in terms of the game itself, the future of it is fine.  I feel this patch is great and they've gotten back on track with the last couple, even if they are taking forever.  That said I have my share of disappointments with the direction the game has taken.  I think the game shifted from being a really interesting project with Rocket, to something that is still going to be an interesting game but has lost its focus/direction.  Whether Rocket was a good game designer or not, his ideas were interesting and DayZ really had a lot of potential to do some cool stuff.  He was heavily focused on simulation and didn't care so much for balance or dictating player experiences.  Maybe the game would have never finished under him, and it may have even been a buggier mess, but I think under his direction it had more character.

 

Now we have a company trying to finish a product.

 

Modding will probably be the real future of DayZ, but I think it will still be a good vanilla experience.

[gambla 118]

"DayZ is a gritty, authentic, open-world survival horror hybrid-MMO game, in which you follow a single goal: to survive in the harsh post-apocalyptic landscape as long as they can" - DayZ description

I came from playing/testing several great Arma 3 mods for years but most of them are pure PvP with just some survival "elements". While PvP as such is great fun, PvP only, and missing any real motivation for it, is not what i want and enjoy. So even with all the negative critics everywhere, about so many bugs and poor performance, i hoped to find real Survival, that promised "single goal". I've read many negative critics like "players starving , freezing to death" and was excited, that's what i want.

So i started playing and was pretty amazed how well everything was working. Haven't found a single major game breaking bug, but the real problem was something else. It was a big fun for some weeks, but soon i had fully accomplished the only "single goal" as described. "Survival" in DayZ's current state is a Walk in the park:

- Loot: Too much loot of everything everywhere you go. Find a little village with a water pump and you got everything you need. No need to explore the map to find supplies or a certain item (except tents and some weapons maybe). No need to go to cities and fight Zombies. No need for fishing and hunting. Choose a house and live in peace and harmony.

So i thought i need to test more high pop servers only to find the majority of server descriptions is like "high loot", "crazy loot", "safe zones", "PvE only" ? And of course, loot was the same on every private and public server i tested.

- Zombies: Not really, we all know. There should be hordes in every single town making it a nightmare to scavenge very rare supplies you need to survive. The reason to quickly find weapons and ammo in the first place. Shooting hundreds of zeds for a can of beans was the big fun for me in the mod days.

- Weather, Environment: Mostly nice and sunny, nothing to survive. No rain periods, no storms, no heavy fog. Find a jacket, sorted. No need for shelter, fireplace, any kind of heating. How it could be ? I remember Namalsk.

So while i'm aware that some issues are performance related, i believe that DayZ has been softened up to the max due to a high number of players complaining about every core survival feature being too hard, imho not understanding the game. According to the original game description and as i like to understand DayZ, surviving day by day is the end game. Those players will be the same guys soon complaining about getting bored because all what is currently left to do is PvP at NWAF. And that is what i currently see is all DayZ is about now: PvP.

I appreciate any developer's status report like the last one about cool new stuff like helicopters or RPGs, better performance and all that.

But all i like to know is in a nutshell:

- if and when will loot be made extremely rare again ?

- if and when will we get zombie hordes in every town ?

- if and when will we get a harsh environment, cold bad weather, again ?

So if and when will DayZ be again as advertised ?

thank you

[S3V3N 1402]

I didn't check the status report, until today and I must say, I revoke most of my earlier statement. Here is a quote from Hicks (and I believe it!):

 

Internally we're hoping to have our next .60 update out late next month. I don't want to get any of you too hyped, but internally we've been observing outstanding client side performance (frame rate) with the new renderer technology. Paired with the performance increase of the New UI, and iteration upon the inventory and UI skinning - we're *hoping* to see .60 be a hell of an update. 

 

They are really taken the engine to a new level, which puts it right next and even above the most refined engine technology out there. It should give the devs the resources to launch their planned features and will make it easier to balance the game economies. This is the big step ahead many have been waiting for, so I'd like to say Thank You! to the devs for sticking to the plan. I know there's a lot of frustration about things that don't work right now and we'll be dealing with those for a while. But Dayz is more and more distancing itself from the simulated features of the Arma RV engines and going the way of a procedural game engine, which can accurately and realistically represent real-life conditions. This is really something to be excited about and quite possibly the most important update for the game, yet! 

Edited January 17, 2016 by S3V3N

[PhillyT 554]

It is sometimes hard to be patient but great things are coming I am sure.

There is still no other game that gives me that feeling of complete paranoia than DayZ does.

 

 

I can agree with this.  I can also say there are games that are demonstrably more playable with far less resources budgeted and far fewer sales already in the can.  The pace has been abysmal.  I actually think Rocket leaving has helped streamline intentions since he is a terrible developer in my opinion.  He wanted DayZ to go in a thousand directions with no real idea how to get there.

 

I am somewhat depressed too that my friend, who has worked for Treyarch and Bungie, was correct when he said Beta would be years away when the SA was released.  I looked at a game I thought could hit Beta quickly, but his intuition was that the game would be lucky to ever reach a truly playable version that a normal consumer would find acceptable.

[stonecutter357 17]

honest opinion,it's going to be just like Arkham Knight money back on day one.

[PhillyT 554]

Arkham knight was actually unplayable.  DayZ is as playable as many low end games released on Steam right now.  

[eno 1049]

I made some of these comments in the Status Report thread but the parsed version is that we're following a pretty traditional BIS theme of introducing new "stuff" while not demonstrating equal enthusiasm for fixing things that are broke. 

 

I know, I know... different teams-

 

Also we need to remember that everything is transitioning from "old" to "new." Why fix something in old when new is right around the corner- and I'm talking big scope stuff like engines and renderers etc. A lot of glitching behavior will be resolved when the new systems are implemented- so I can understand that some nagging bugs don't appear to be getting fixed when in fact they're not even an issue when the new carpet is rolled out. 

 

Game development is definitely giving those of us who are in here questioning development something to be concerned about- guys who are running around pew pew twitch pew pew youtube channels pew pew don't give a fuck where the game is going as long as rocket launchers. Helicopters. Yeah. The rest of us are sitting back going- okay... we'll play along for a bit but... uh... Elektro pvp again? THAT's the highlight video? 

 

I wouldn't be playing anymore if not for the fact that I've found a great group of guys to hang out with and just do whatever the server or situation of the day is going to dictate. Last night we went to Sol on a busy server with good intentions and 5 minutes in we're in a firefight. In SOL of all places. The day before I was out with one of the guys hunting boar / deer for our leather attire. 

 

This is definitely going to be a game where you choose your own adventure- and you do so in spite of what is happening all around you. Don't expect it to change without an investment in time and imagination on your part. 

[BeefBacon 1185]

DayZ development has been pretty turbulent. It can't be easy providing content that is based on systems that aren't even implemented yet, so the devs have to compromise and add new clothes and guns, as they basically work, and the art team isn't reliant on programming. The result is that everybody bitches and moans "oh, another new gun? Another jacket?"

 

Meanwhile, the real work is under the hood. They release new items in an effort to keep the sweating masses happy, because they know that if they add some fancy new mechanic it'll be rendered obsolete by the work they've been doing on the engine and the renderer and everything else that they've teased, but isn't yet ready.

 

When the groundwork is finally in place, I expect we'll start seeing real, drastic improvements and changes to DayZ. For now it's new weapons and clothing. 

[Deathlove 2286]

DayZ development has been pretty turbulent. It can't be easy providing content that is based on systems that aren't even implemented yet, so the devs have to compromise and add new clothes and guns, as they basically work, and the art team isn't reliant on programming. The result is that everybody bitches and moans "oh, another new gun? Another jacket?"

 

Meanwhile, the real work is under the hood. They release new items in an effort to keep the sweating masses happy, because they know that if they add some fancy new mechanic it'll be rendered obsolete by the work they've been doing on the engine and the renderer and everything else that they've teased, but isn't yet ready.

 

When the groundwork is finally in place, I expect we'll start seeing real, drastic improvements and changes to DayZ. For now it's new weapons and clothing. 

 

I personally enjoy all the new guns and gear that comes out. It just means more options for latter when the core meat of the game gets introduced.

 

Hopefully though by the end of the year we finally start to see the game in how its supposed to be. If not there is always 2017......? XD

[sneakydudes 278]

It is sometimes hard to be patient but great things are coming I am sure.

There is still no other game that gives me that feeling of complete paranoia than DayZ does.

Ill never be able to relive my days past, when the first time i logged into Everquest 1999, and in nek forest the evil sounds.

 

but dayz does give the feeling of being watched. Which is a good thing.

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

I must say I’m confused like hell, too. It was stated many times that the devs want the game to be survival-oriented and actually hard, with scarce loot and so on. I remember reading that eventually, a can of food is going to be treasure to be cherished. But 2015 was very disappointing in this department. Not only loot is abundant as always, the survival elements seem always to give way to new guns etc. It’s not only the pace but also the focus which is upsetting me.

 

I love the addition of vehicles, fixing and using them feels like finally there is “something to do” across Chernarus and they’re actually useful (as opposed for example to heli hunts, which yield slightly better collector’s stuff for a great amount of effort). But this happens at the cost of the above-mentioned medical system, new animals, weather, etc.

 

They declare some goal but then shape the entire game in another direction and end up with a completely different customer base, which only further pushes for PvP elements. It’s a vicious circle, really. I remember one of the previous builds where loot was so scarce that all those poor kiddie “snipers” kept dying of hunger in droves… It was super funny to watch them complain and I don’t get it why we had to roll back. I understand we’re supposed to playtest here, but I can’t think of any good reason why canned food is not cut down ten times in volume, right here right now. This one little thing could make the game completely different.

 

And as for the helicopter - I love the idea and I'm looking forward to give it a shot, it's just I feel it should be literally the last thing to be added to the game.

 

Bottom line is, as much I like DayZ, it is as much of a "zombie survival" game as Farmville. I believe the devs kinda lost the big picture here.