Change the models of just 3 buildings to their ruined versions and it would signifiantly reduce glitching

[chambersenator 106]

I think it's safe to say that nearly all of us at one point or another have fallen victim to another player that is glitched inside a building. While certainly not a game-breaking issue, it is an irritant that happens frequently enough that players have to adjust their behavior when near these buildings to minimize the risk. We all know that the problems with those buildings will be addressed in the future, and to do a full review and overhaul of those models takes time - time that right now, should be spent on higher priority issues.

However, waiting for the fixed models is not the only option, and if a significantly less time-consuming alternative is possible as a temporary measure for at least some of these buildings, the overall benefits to the everyday player experience could arguably make it worth the time of the dev team. Rather than rattle off list off a bunch of buildings, I'd like to just focus on what seems to be the most problematic and well-known building - the "camo building/military jail" (IIRC, it's called Prison or Command Center in the assets - pic here). The loot spawns were removed from this building some time ago, which did help the situation by reducing player traffic inside the building, but it still meant it could be used and exploited against players outside the building.

My suggestion is this: why not simply replace the current building model with the ruined destroyed model? There would be no new models to make, as there are two models to choose from - the original ruined model from A2, and the 'enhanced' ruined model in SA, which can be seen just north of the ATC tower and Fire Station at the NWAF, or in Turovo. No loot spawn points would need to be removed or disabled, as that has already been done ages ago in .56.

I've been around ArmA & DayZ long enough to know that  "an easy fix" is as rare as hen's teeth, and something that seems as simple as a changing a model from 'normal' to 'ruined' sometimes can open up a surprisingly huge can of worms. Only when compared to the time required to overhaul a building model would one feel fairly safe suggesting that it's at least 'significantly easier.'

As I understand it, once you change the model, a certain amount of internal QA would need to be done to ensure there's no surprise problems (players getting stuck, or perhaps even glitching through the ground and dying, for example). So to reduce the total amount of time spent on this for the maximum benefit, it seems logical to focus only on the locations where they are the most problematic.

Out of the 9 places that there are intact Prisons/Command Centers, changing only 3 of them would give the most benefit to the players (listed here in descending order of importance).

- NWAF, by the northernmost hangar

- Zelenogorsk, by the barracks

- Bashnya, north of the NWAF tents

The remaining Prisons/Command Centers can wait, as their location, terrain, surrounding structures, and frequency of player traffic around them make them less attractive to those that would seek to exploit them. The ones at Balota and the SW corner of the NWAF I would be nice to see, but nowhere near as important as those three.

If this or something like it were to be implemented in one of the patches in the (hopefully near) future, I have little doubt that the player base would consider it time well spent (aside from the glitchers, of course)

I would welcome any input/corrections/explanations from the devs and those more knowledgeable than I about the process, problems, and feasibility of this proposal.

 

Edited September 21, 2016 by chambersenator
put the suggestion itself in bold

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

Hi!

The new player controller being worked on will solve the wall glitching as was announced by the devs in a status report some months ago.

[chambersenator 106]

Well then, I feel rather silly. I'm really surprised I missed that. Usually I'm the one that is citing dev reports/updates to people's questions.

In any case, I'm glad it's part of the new controller and won't require a overhaul of the models.

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

Morning!

As Bio mentioned, this issue will be on the top of our list with the new player controller. We made a significant amount of changes and fixes to the first building you mentioned earlier on, and rapidly discovered that we would just be chasing this issue again, and again - if we didn't address the root cause of it. Thus, we removed any need to enter the primary building tied to the issue, while work moved forward on the new player controller.

I hope this answers your questions!

[chambersenator 106]

Absolutely. As a longtime ArmA/DayZ player who enjoys learning whatever I can about what's 'under the hood' in these games, and trying to figure out what can and can't be done on our end, it's easy to fall into the pattern of thinking in terms of workarounds, as the 'root issues' are often inaccessible. Also, while we know the new player controller will be the foundation of a system that will solve so many issues and open up a vast array of new possibilities, it's not easy to wrap our brains around the full extent of its capabilities and reach. We know it should effectively address a great number of issues and open up new possibilities (with the understanding that this is only the first public version of it). However, I suspect that many of those like myself who try to keep themselves fairly well informed and have full faith in the project and the dev team, and understand the importance and significance of the player controller at a general level, we'll only really start to understand the full extent of it once we experience it for ourselves, and have those limits pushed by the dev team, and modders later on.

In a lot of ways it's similar to how one can say the Sahara desert is big by looking at a map, but not really understand how big until you try to walk from Morocco to Cairo.