Is DayZ still too easy ?

[Nicklander 13]

12 minutes ago, Hyperion1817 said:

I know this has been stated previously, but I really feel if starvation and dehydration were a serious threat the survival aspect of the game would improve greatly. Especially if food was somewhat scarce and took a bit of time and effort to come across. 

Making food cans extremely rare is not the best solution. They'd better make surviving more interactive. For instance, farming your own food is way more interactive than running into random buildings and pray to god to find some cans. Not sure if you get my point, I'd like it to be more complicated to survive, so that you're forced to do various actions/tasks. But I have to admit that that's quite tough to conceptualize/implement. However they should start improving that aspect.

[Nicklander 13]

13 minutes ago, sanguine00 said:

Again, what is and is not a "major problem" depends on your perspective.  If you are a survivalist, then yes any PvP-related problem isn't a big deal to you.

Also, you have no idea what I focus on.  I was speaking from the perspectives of others who hold a different point of view than me (or you).  You should try it sometime.  I love the survival aspect of the game and enjoy it immensely.

First of all, I play a lot of pvp these times (i.e. taking part in events), as I said in my first post. So no, I don't focus on pve only.

Let's stay objective. I bet you can't say much about pvp-related problems, except that weapons are glitching away sometimes, while I could write a book about the pve aspect of Dayz. I don't say much about pvp simply because there's not much about it to be said, not because I hate it. It works. That's it.

And yes...it's quite obvious what you focus on. You should express yourself better if that's really not the case.

Edited December 22, 2016 by Nicklander

[sanguine00 168]

15 minutes ago, Nicklander said:

I could write a book about the pve aspect of Dayz.

And I'm sure it would be a bestseller.  But in this thread, you've only spoken to balancing issues with the PvE aspect of the game, nothing that simply "doesn't work".

And I agree, the PvE aspect does need balancing, but so does PvP.  Claiming that it doesn't need attention simply because gun go boom and player fall down (or zig-zags away) is reductive and yes, a giveaway of your focus.  And that's fine for you.  But the designers of the game have been clear that there will be multiple viable play styles in DayZ, and all will receive the appropriate attention to make them challenging and enjoyable.

Not to mention, systems such as the damage system (which is being re-done) will affect both PvE and PvP.  Oh no, something that will benefit everyone who plays the game.  Must burn you to the core.

 

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

2 hours ago, sanguine00 said:

Not to mention, systems such as the damage system (which is being re-done) will affect both PvE and PvP.  Oh no, something that will benefit everyone who plays the game.  Must burn you to the core.

Look, nobody wants Farmville here. Go ahead and have fun with PVP. But the idea is, you need to work for your food first. And you can't camp sniper hills, if only because of the weather. And you have three rounds for your barely-still-even-working Winchester and one round for a Magnum. Still going to shoot that guy? Fine, just make sure to get a headshot because you need his raincoat, you're drenched already. And before you get to loot his corpse, make sure to plan your escape route as you'll get 15 zeds within a minute on your ass. Now go ahead and shoot.

That's survival game in my book and that's how I imagine our precious PVE+PVP equilibrium.

 

[sanguine00 168]

14 minutes ago, Kirov (DayZ) said:

Look, nobody wants Farmville here. Go ahead and have fun with PVP. But the idea is, you need to work for your food first. And you can't camp sniper hills, if only because of the weather. And you have three rounds for your barely-still-even-working Winchester and one round for a Magnum. Still going to shoot that guy? Fine, just make sure to get a headshot because you need his raincoat, you're drenched already. And before you get to loot his corpse, make sure to plan your escape route as you'll get 15 zeds within a minute on your ass. Now go ahead and shoot.

That's survival game in my book and that's how I imagine our precious PVE+PVP equilibrium.

 

I agree with this 100%.  I love that when spawning in, the focus is shifting to survival first, and once you get over that initial hump, you can start to do other things.  It creates an "arc" for the lifetime of your character.  It's DayZ.

My argument was never that survival should take a backseat to PvP.  My original point was that the more experience you get in the game, the more you learn the systems and thus can "beat" the systems more easily.  And while there's definitely room for the vanilla game to become more difficult from a survival standpoint, I only wanted to warn that the perspective of a player with 1000 hours is much different than one with 1 hour, and you risk losing that 1-hour player if you make survival so esoteric that it's impossible for a new player unless they read Nicklander's book.

Somehow based on that sentiment I got dragged into a PvEvPvP discussion.  I think it was the 72-pt font guy.

Edited December 23, 2016 by sanguine00

[p4triot 207]

As for now, the hardest enemy of this game is the game itself and the broken mechanics. For example, I would ask for a hundred zombie horde for enhanced PVE difficulty but with the way melee is working, better not. I would ask also for a broken bones recovery time instead of instantly, but with the broken mechanics accidentaly breaking bones in a nonsense way, better not. You step on a puddle half a second, you die, reminds me of my mom with the "I just scrubbed the floor and it's still wet!" and you die for steping on it. It's not the zombie, the bone, the puddle or my mom whats killing me, it's the game mechanic. Zombie, bone and puddle would be eazy peazy if this worked right, and only then I'm going to ask for more zombies, more rain, more difficulty

[0xy 10]

It's not a game. It's a game development project in alpha state, and you are part of this development. Great no?

[Guy Smiley 534]

So needing an m4 and a buttload of ammo is all that's needed for survival?  That's kind of what I'm getting out of this thread.  I don't care how decked out anyone's character is, starvation, diseases and the elements should be a concern still.

[Noctoras 409]

On 21.12.2016 at 6:25 PM, Kirov (DayZ) said:

 I remember very well my first steps, when I was eating all those vitamins, purifying water (which wasn't a thing back then), carrying useless stuff like duct tapes, syringes etc. and I was hugely dismayed when I found out that most of this stuff doesn't even work yet. .

Fun fact, that was in 2014, if that's in line with your registration here, and most of this stuff doesn't even work come 2017 either.

[Noctoras 409]

surplus post

Edited December 24, 2016 by Noctoras
none given

[Bororm 1156]

On 12/22/2016 at 2:17 PM, Kirov (DayZ) said:

Look, nobody wants Farmville here. Go ahead and have fun with PVP. But the idea is, you need to work for your food first. And you can't camp sniper hills, if only because of the weather. And you have three rounds for your barely-still-even-working Winchester and one round for a Magnum. Still going to shoot that guy? Fine, just make sure to get a headshot because you need his raincoat, you're drenched already. And before you get to loot his corpse, make sure to plan your escape route as you'll get 15 zeds within a minute on your ass. Now go ahead and shoot.

That's survival game in my book and that's how I imagine our precious PVE+PVP equilibrium.

 

 

Where do the SAWs, pk machine guns, drum mags, helicopters, RPGs, grenade launchers, land mines, range finders, nvgs and ammo crates fit into that game?  I think you should tell the devs if you know, because they clearly have no idea either.

 

Here's two more 40 slot military backpacks for you, since you're supposed to be having a hard time looting.

Edited December 24, 2016 by Bororm

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

9 hours ago, Noctoras said:

Fun fact, that was in 2014, if that's in line with your registration here, and most of this stuff doesn't even work come 2017 either.

 

7 hours ago, Bororm said:

 

Where do the SAWs, pk machine guns, drum mags, helicopters, RPGs, grenade launchers, land mines, range finders, nvgs and ammo crates fit into that game?  I think you should tell the devs if you know, because they clearly have no idea either.

 

Here's two more 40 slot military backpacks for you, since you're supposed to be having a hard time looting.

This is why after 2 years of defending the devs against the 'why this alpha is still alpha' folk I finally lost my patience and started criticizing them.

Not because of the current state of the game, mind you, but because of the directions (and rate) of progress I've seen in my dayz career. Every build we get items like trumpets and medical scrubs (who the fuck could possibly find it useful?) but survival-related issues get very superficial treatment. A lot has happened in dayz for the past two years but the outsdoormen got fewest candies. Yes, I'm pissed.

I still remember that the bear was supposed to be added somewhere in Q2 2015. Instead, we got the SVD. Yeah, it's PvP which is neglected.

 

Surviving the environment in DayZ is literally the easiest part of any game I have literally played in my entire life. And I use the word 'literally' literally.

Edited December 24, 2016 by Kirov (DayZ)

[Espa 711]

Personally I don't want to say its perfectly balanced because obviously Beta isn't here - And I won't say its too hard because there is plenty to exploit and not everything works as intended yet. It's good to remember that this game is in Alpha and that there is a shit ton of content they've worked on that we don't have access to yet, but will quite soon. 

The 2016 In Review post by Baty is the most insightful thing One can look at if they want to see what the Devs have been working on. (I.E. Everything we've wanted) Things may take time, but this Dev team is finally at the top of the hill and ready to run down at full speed. I imagine 2017 will be extremely expansionist and ambitious on their part. 

I won't even pretend to know the first thing about programming, but I'll say these guys have shown in these full months that they're A+. Keep up support, take breaks as per any game, and join back as new stuff comes - The DayZ mantra.

[IMT 3190]

Alright, first of all on the topic of apples, in the future the apple trees and probably berry bushes will change into an inventory based system. Which means you will need to press TAB or search for apples and you will get an inventory menu and you can take the apples out of there. This means that apples aren't going to be infinite anymore and spamming doesn't work. You will be able to get a few apples but if the trees empty, it's empty. At least this is how I think it will work and I hope it will be balanced where apples are not the main source to get yourself energized, hydrated and healthy. In Experimental I tried to get healthy without the use of apples and I started to loot Berezino. Finding food was hard so I had to resort to farming which also didn't help that much but I could keep myself from starving by the bit of food I found and the crops I farmed. I finally got to healthy after I started fishing and that's how I like to see it. Loot the town for supplies and optionally farm crops to keep yourself from dying of starvation until you can hunt or fish which is a way better energy vs. stomach content ratio.

Also, the developers are reducing loot or at least canned food with each build or patch. I think there are two reasons behind this. The first reason being that they need to analyze the data they get when they tweaked the loot. This takes time and after they analyzed it they can tweak it again and rinse and repeat. The second reason is to push the players slowly but surely towards the end game. If they suddenly reduce the loot severly there are going to be a lot of deaths and a lot of tears suddenly which results in gasoline cannisters full of tears to keep me hydrated (yeah, I live on those tears).

The developers mentioned many times that DayZ isn't supposed to be easy but rather hard. And in the endgame we will see if they keep their words and in my opinion I'm sure they will and I'm seeing it happen even though it's slowly. Wait until the stamina system comes in with weight and no more endless running. In the latest status (or was it the 2016 review topic?) they mentioned that sprinting everywhere is going to be history because that's why there will be vehicles.

On the topic of diseases, there already some diseases in and I peaked through the game files and there are already more diseases in but I don't know if they're active at the moment. But I saw someone mentioned cholera and that drinking from ponds need to have an higher risk. Perhaps you don't drink a lot from ponds but if you're not healthy and you drink from a pond without purifying your water there is an high chance you will catch cholera. And I believe cholera is at the moment the worst disease you can catch. Just like when you're soaked or drenched you need to act immediately or you'll die when you catch cholera. The problem is, cholera is a slow and torturing disease and it takes multiple hours to get rid of it. As soon as your get the red status messages all you basically can do is sit still because you're losing blood slowly and your hydration goes down hard which means if you move you'll lose even more hydration, speeding up the process of your death.

I do hope they make wells a limited source of waters which slowly regenerates again just like I think how the apple trees are going to work. This will make it also harder to stay hydrated and you need to plan carefully with your hydration.

In conclusion: at the moment DayZ is easy to survive although slowly but surely you can see they are pushing towards the PvE and survival aspect which is great. We will see survival getting harder and harder going towards the release of the game so I shouldn't worry about it too much now.

Edited December 24, 2016 by IMT

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

29 minutes ago, IMT said:

In conclusion: at the moment DayZ is easy to survive although slowly but surely you can see they are pushing towards the PvE and survival aspect which is great. We will see survival getting harder and harder going towards the release of the game so I shouldn't worry about it too much now.

OK, thanks for that very informative post, it puts me at ease somewhat. I'm still concerned that as PVE stuff comes later, it will be less tested by us. I understand that it's harder to make a working bear than a gun, but the more we wait, the less time towards the final release towards balance tweaks and glitch removal.

And I must say that - it's the 100th time I hear that food is abundant because something something loot analysis. What is so special about food loot? Can't they replace all the food cans with teddy bears and analyze that? I'm genuinely asking here, I can't fathom why food is so special. And even if it is - you can always replace food cans with bananas, can't you?

[IMT 3190]

9 minutes ago, Kirov (DayZ) said:

OK, thanks for that very informative post, it puts me at ease somewhat. I'm still concerned that as PVE stuff comes later, it will be less tested by us. I understand that it's harder to make a working bear than a gun, but the more we wait, the less time towards the final release towards balance tweaks and glitch removal.

And I must say that - it's the 100th time I hear that food is abundant because something something loot analysis. What is so special about food loot? Can't they replace all the food cans with teddy bears and analyze that? I'm genuinely asking here, I can't fathom why food is so special. And even if it is - you can always replace food cans with bananas, can't you?

Trust me, PvE functionality is tested. I hunt a lot, I fish sometimes, etc. And others I know do this stuff too. Don't pass on an herd of deer or cows or @emuthreat will get upset!

Replacing food with other items can be replaced by other items but then the loot would stay the same except for food. The reason why they want to generally reduce canned goods is because of it makes the game easier and thus make survival easier and the PvE aspect easier.

[emuthreat 2837]

On 12/22/2016 at 4:24 PM, sanguine00 said:

I agree with this 100%.  I love that when spawning in, the focus is shifting to survival first, and once you get over that initial hump, you can start to do other things.  It creates an "arc" for the lifetime of your character.  It's DayZ.

My argument was never that survival should take a backseat to PvP.  My original point was that the more experience you get in the game, the more you learn the systems and thus can "beat" the systems more easily.  And while there's definitely room for the vanilla game to become more difficult from a survival standpoint, I only wanted to warn that the perspective of a player with 1000 hours is much different than one with 1 hour, and you risk losing that 1-hour player if you make survival so esoteric that it's impossible for a new player unless they read Nicklander's book.

Somehow based on that sentiment I got dragged into a PvEvPvP discussion.  I think it was the 72-pt font guy.

When I first started playing DayZ, I had a few experiences in the first couple days that showed me what kind of game this is.
Falling to my death off the stairs in the red-roof barn. Getting beaten by zombies to the point that my vision was all grey and blurry.  Breaking my legs and crawling for a half-hour just to find a zombie to put me out of my misery.

"Oh. Ok.  I see what kind of game this is now."  If people start playing and are put-off by the difficulty, then maybe this isn't the right game for them, or the right time for them to be playing this game.

[sanguine00 168]

52 minutes ago, emuthreat said:

When I first started playing DayZ, I had a few experiences in the first couple days that showed me what kind of game this is.
Falling to my death off the stairs in the red-roof barn. Getting beaten by zombies to the point that my vision was all grey and blurry.  Breaking my legs and crawling for a half-hour just to find a zombie to put me out of my misery.

"Oh. Ok.  I see what kind of game this is now."  If people start playing and are put-off by the difficulty, then maybe this isn't the right game for them, or the right time for them to be playing this game.

Yeah, I know.  And the game being difficult, or being an "anti-game" makes the people who play it feel like special snowflakes, which is great.  I feel it, too.  I would still contend that ramping up the difficulty to satisfy a niche of long-time hardcore players would be questionable design.

There will be mods for people who want a more casual experience.  And those who want FamineZ with zombies that shoot bees out of their eyes may also need modding.

[emuthreat 2837]

43 minutes ago, sanguine00 said:

Yeah, I know.  And the game being difficult, or being an "anti-game" makes the people who play it feel like special snowflakes, which is great.  I feel it, too.  I would still contend that ramping up the difficulty to satisfy a niche of long-time hardcore players would be questionable design.

There will be mods for people who want a more casual experience.  And those who want FamineZ with zombies that shoot bees out of their eyes may also need modding.  

 

Okay, firstly, I take issue with your use of the term snowflakes.  I'm going to assume that you are from the US, and you know about the divisive social connotations carried by the popular contemporary usage of the term snowlfake as an epitet to disparage the perceived rival ideological/political group.
It is at best bait, and at worst an attack on someone's identity and values. So let's not go there. Please.

I understand that the game is still under development, and that it is generally unwise to alienate one's audience, but that begs the question of identifying the intended audience of this game?  

Harsh, Unforgiving, Hardcore, Survival, Zombies.  These are all words that come to mind when thinking about what kind of marketing materials have been produced by BI to entice their intended audience.  Would I be mistaken to believe that their target audience would be people who respond positively to these types of words?
I mean, they didn't cal it a fast-paced, accessible open world shooter, did they?  I'm assuming BI will make the game they damn-well feel like making, because they have already made millions off the alpha, and don't need to cater to a mass market.  If the people who bough in early are unhappy with the finished product, that's what disclaimers and mods are for.

What we are talking about with difficulty and depth-of play, specifically relating to environmental challenges, is the acknowledged need to incentivize players to question their own actions, and balance their bloodlust with the need to survive in order to actualize said bloodlust.  Guns work. we got that covered.  What the game now needs, is a comprehensive system of foraging, crafting, building, storing, cooking, and all the other things necessary to keep players alive long enough to murder each other in truly meaningful ways; along with environmental challenges to keep this process from becoming too easy that it gets boring fast.

Edited December 25, 2016 by emuthreat
spoiler problems

[sanguine00 168]

39 minutes ago, emuthreat said:

Okay, firstly, I take issue with your use of the term snowflakes.  I'm going to assume that you are from the US, and you know about the divisive social connotations carried by the popular contemporary usage of the term snowlfake as an epitet to disparage the perceived rival ideological/political group.
It is at best bait, and at worst an attack on someone's identity and values. So let's not go there. Please.

Oh I was most-definitely attacking your identity and values.  Let there be no doubt. /sarcasm

39 minutes ago, emuthreat said:

Harsh, Unforgiving, Hardcore, Survival, Zombies.  These are all words that come to mind when thinking about what kind of marketing materials have been produced by BI to entice their intended audience.  Would I be mistaken to believe that their target audience would be people who respond positively to these types of words?
I mean, they didn't cal it a fast-paced, accessible open world shooter, did they?  I'm assuming BI will make the game they damn-well feel like making, because they have already made millions off the alpha, and don't need to cater to a mass market.  If the people who bough in early are unhappy with the finished product, that's what disclaimers and mods are for.

I give you the launch trailer:

 

I'm sure if they remade the trailer today they would take out all of the footage of M4's and Mosin's on the coast and replace it with something a bit more slow-paced like foraging for apples and some extreme crouch walking.

That was some intense music, too.  That marketing material really got the juices flowing.

39 minutes ago, emuthreat said:

What we are talking about with difficulty and depth-of play, specifically relating to environmental challenges, is the acknowledged need to incentivize players to question their own actions, and balance their bloodlust with the need to survive in order to actualize said bloodlust

No disagreement here.

39 minutes ago, emuthreat said:

Guns work. we got that covered.

Cool.  That doesn't mean that PvP-related mechanics don't need work.  But we're not talking PvEvPvP.  We're talking about difficulty.

39 minutes ago, emuthreat said:

What the game now needs, is a comprehensive system of foraging, crafting, building, storing, cooking, and all the other things necessary to keep players alive long enough to murder each other in truly meaningful ways; along with environmental challenges to keep this process from becoming too easy that it gets boring fast.

Again, no disagreement here.  I'm only making the point that wanting a game to be "difficult", "punishing" and "unforgiving" does not mean it cannot become too difficult.  There is a threshold there, and it's highly unlikely that the threshold stops at the highest difficulty the hardest of hardcore players (might just include some of the people here!) would request.

Edited December 25, 2016 by sanguine00
RIP spoiler tag.

[green_mtn_grandbob 594]

You guys can type your fingers to the bone, but this poll don't mean a thing until the game hits 1.

[emuthreat 2837]

I thought this was the topic discussing whether or not DayZ was too easy.  Unfortunately, we won't even begin to understand what that means until all game elements are included and working.  Then comes the balance.  For now, it's still much too easy. Needs more wolves, ATM.

[kopo79 426]

hand-dril kit....making fire in nature with that with fresh wood...it should ne imbossible...maybe with those dead wood,gaming wise it should be doable but....make matchstics,(lighter)and that red thing what you start with more important.
 

[BobbyDean 7]

Def still too easy - need like 10 times as many zombies as there are now.  Also food still to easy to obtain - find a pack of seeds and you have unlimited supply of food.  I like the farming system but seeds way too easy to come by.  Also unlimited apples and fish is an issue.   

[Sqeezorz 839]

For experienced players, it is easy. Is like living in real life, when you have learned something is the thing for a very simple. For a new player, the thing looks a bit different .... you do not know there are apple trees? You do not know how to make fire? Then it will take without hints from strangers quite a while with the experience of emerge and die after a short time. Whether something simple is always very relative to one's own experience.

Think back to your school time. For the teacher was the stuff he always learned, he was the teacher .... for the pupils on the chairs things looked different, why sometimes smoke from the minds of the students rose? Wanted to ban the teacher to hell? The game is not finished yet, so there is no possibility to make servers with different levels of difficulty, so it should be playable for all, even for new ones, even if not so many new ones are added.

Adjusting the balance will then only prove useful in the beta phase.