How To Win Playerbase Back

[pilgrim* 3514]

38 minutes ago, Caatalyst said:

Dude did you not play Doom or Half Life 1? ... Counter Strike... Team Fortress.... Natural Selection... All these great mods and the huge community that was alive for so long because of modding.

For the first time in a long time, I have high hopes for the future of Dayz. 

Yes I think that's the whole list of standard FPS .. wow that was a lot of sameness. I played the originals through but couldn't stand any of the mods. Sorry.. I'm not one of those people who collect 15 or 25 FPS games all the same-same.. kind of "NOT a club member" right? .. I'd say "Saturday Nite Team Fortress Mod People  =  Groan"  but I don't want to be impolite.  I've known some of those people. I'm not one. Excuse me if i class those mods as games for kids - or for kids who want to be Pro Game Stars. 
- No offence.

[Guy Smiley 534]

There is a huge difference between mods that enhance the gameplay of the base game from mods that detract from the base game.  Most people vying for mods want the ones that hand out starter kits, thousands of guns, cars, tanks, helicopters and detract from what DayZ is about, a survival game.  Seriously, if you want to play soldier, there is hundreds of shooters that do it.  Hell, Bohemia even makes a game for you guys....  it's called ARMA

Edited August 31, 2017 by Guy Smiley

[kopo79 426]

I count myself as a gone away player but may be back when bugs are fixed and little more difficulty added.fix the status bar bug via server perfomance...fix the bugs around fishing...make chickens travel randomly in landscape(not only in towns)...nerf the apples and medical system...surviving should be more than collect apples,find few rags and gun and go to the war.make stamina one of the biggest thing in game via happiness,healthy food and social interactions etc....more you eat variety of foods,more you spend time on heat of the fire just randomly,more happy you are and it effect your stamina...link everything to stamina.....coldness,thirsty,hungry should first affect stamina...and please...when its cold in game,try somehow show it visually...just little snowflakes that melt instantly on ground....thats it.

[green_mtn_grandbob 594]

37 minutes ago, kopo79 said:

I count myself as a gone away player but may be back when bugs are fixed and little more difficulty added.fix the status bar bug via server perfomance...fix the bugs around fishing...make chickens travel randomly in landscape(not only in towns)...nerf the apples and medical system...surviving should be more than collect apples,find few rags and gun and go to the war.make stamina one of the biggest thing in game via happiness,healthy food and social interactions etc....more you eat variety of foods,more you spend time on heat of the fire just randomly,more happy you are and it effect your stamina...link everything to stamina.....coldness,thirsty,hungry should first affect stamina...and please...when its cold in game,try somehow show it visually...just little snowflakes that melt instantly on ground....thats it.

I don't think the developers have any control over how players play dayz, I think dayz will have fixed the bugs by the time dayz is finished. The interactions depend on the players who are on the same server you are on. I don't know of any game that makes saints out of killers, but i wish that dayz gets so tough that players have to work together to survive. 

[Girth Brooks 570]

Me personally i am welcoming the mods. The only reason Arma 3 has a player base still is because of mods like ARMA life. Bohemia has been always about letting the player control what is going on. 

Yes they will be Base building and fun things to do, but is up to the player to determine what is endgame. Raiding bases, making friends, starting a shop and selling ammo etc etc etc

[Ben_uk 24]

I personally would like to see something perhaps a little more structured in DayZ. I'm probably in the minority, but i'd like to see side missions or some kind of objective-based gameplay.

[Henk Grunn 16]

On 27-8-2017 at 3:25 AM, pilgrim* said:

There is an illogical fantasy going on (like an epidemic) :

Everyone talks about the "Finished Game" - the RELEASE - like it will be the Second Coming, where   << the Game will mean ALL things to ALL players >>  - the survivalists will find the supermarkets empty and the PvPers will find stacks of cans of beans. The rain will freeze you if you want it to, but if you don't like rain you can walk around in storms wearing your shorts and it will have no effect.. there will be piles of ammo in every square of every town stacked next to the crates of military weapons, unless you are a lone survivalist hunter then you will only find 5 rounds for your Blaze in a week of searching and 2 of them will be badly damaged. If you catch Cholera from the river you can just wander down the Hospital and take some antibiotics out of the Antibiotic Cupboard, there are always plenty, but PvPers will never catch Cholera naturally, because it's very boring. If it takes 20 minutes to do something repetitive you can do it in five, if it takes 2 minutes and you think it is too easy you can do it in 25. The zombies will be less dangerous and also more dangerous too. There will be many players to interact with and also total solitude.  No one will have to do boring things unless they want to be excited by being repetitive, KOSers will have infinite targets, new spawns will never be shot, or axed, or tricked or torn to pieces by wolves. Everyone will decide what is fair and fun and THAT IS what they will get, each one of them..right after the BETA..  no more and no less.. What YOU want in DayZ is what the RELEASE is going to give YOU.. (and it doesn't matter WHO you are, you'll get it exactly) 

- so WHY do I think DayZ will go on being .. er .. DayZ ..  even AFTER the Beta, and even at that moment of Final Release? .. WHEN is it going to start being What EVERY player wants, even when they totally disagree with each other.?  So many folk seem to be waiting for THAT.. 

I expect the finished game to be pretty much DayZ, pretty much as it has been, and will be.. WHAT THE =F=  is this "major change" that folk are Dreaming about and talking about and waiting for ?? - Do you people really expect a Second Coming, a Complete Miracle from the Sky.. A RAPTURE ??  Will you ALL be happy on that day? 

 

('scuse me, see, I'm not a Christian, I'm a Buddhist.. ok?)

xx pilgrim

I would be happy if the description on the steam page would be actually about the game.

It's says something about fight for your life. Well, I,  and many others, don't have to fight for our life. I, and probably the majority can live from patch wipe to patch wipe without problems. As long as you are not looking for trouble. I'm stuffed within no time, without the apples. And i often don't see anyone for hours. I haven't died in ages, and only have killed 2 people. in the last 2 patches. 

Oh I forgot, there is something you have to fight against. And that's "BOREDOM".

In it's current state, and i think 0.63 will be no different, the game is giving the players zero incentive to do anything. Open world? yeah fine, but even most open world games give players certain incentives. You can get anything from everywhere. Even if you can't find a specific commodity everywhere, you can find the alternative for it everywhere.  And there you have the reason why you can walk all over the map without seeing a single soul on a full server.

An incentive could be a commodity that everyone, pvp and non pvp minded players,  needs and that can only be found at 2 or 3 locations. There you have the player interaction. And a quest.  I would like to see that in the game. That would make me happy. 

A chance to get an infection by one of the zeds. That would make them scary. Right now the zeds don't bother me at all. That would  make me happy.

There is plenty of stuff that could make the player base happy. And till now, the devs did not reserve any of their resources to make the early access buyers a bit happy during the development process. There is no gameplay, only a maze. That doesn't make me happy. hopefully the 1.0 release will include some gameplay instead of just graphics, inventory and mechanics.

[SFRGaming 718]

I fully believe what happened with the DayZ Mod will happen with the Standalone when it hits beta and issues start getting fixed.
 

The Mod didn't have a huge player-base on it's initial "launch" (if you can call it a launch); however, through people like FrankieOnPC and Jackfrags doing a number of playthroughs and guides, the game gained a ton of traction in the survival community.

This isn't 2005 anymore, you don't make a popular game through commercials anymore. You make a popular game by putting said game out for the streamers and let the leaves fall where they may.

If they bite, then they bite. If they don't, then they don't.

With that being said, I think Day will ALWAYS have a player-base. While it may not be large, it's hard for those core players to find a game to replace DayZ that encompasses all of the things that DayZ does in its current state (which is impressive imo).

 

Edited September 20, 2017 by SFRGaming

[Mantasisg 172]

It is impressive technically, but there is little use of technical side without it's soulful brother - the gameplay. The issue is that the best gameplay vison is different to everyone. When DayZ was 0.5x you could feel that lots of interesting guys and girls are around, with 0.6x most of those interesting and creative players found DayZ "not the same" anymore. And left. And it was indeed not the same anymore, perhaps even since late 0.5x. In one of the late 0.5x iteration DayZ went just all hardcore with crazy loot at the coast (before that it was perfect), it was fun, but exaggerated. Then DayZ devs said that ok this was fun for some time, but now gotta get serious - almost removed loot from the coast, made everybody to go inlands. It begun to be a real struggle to get a gameplay from DayZ, so many quit. Ok most quit. 

Who are still playing are probably very hard believers in DayZ, some who starving for DayZ and didn't get any when it was before 0.6, freak fanboys, and people who actually enjoy this type of game which it is now - and those aren't creative, or interesting persons.... So nothing isteresting is going on, far too much KOS and little interactions and so on....

So 0.63 has to be released , AND most importantly the gameplay has to be balanced back to where it was in 0.5x. Otherwise no chance for DayZ. If some really cool content would be presented, then maybe players would peak at 10K for a month or two, but without gameplay they will not stay.

And DayZ has big chances still, because there is no replacement yet... All those survival games available are just too different. But yes, they definitely shares players.

[Guy Smiley 534]

8 minutes ago, Mantasisg said:

So 0.63 has to be released , AND most importantly the gameplay has to be balanced back to where it was in 0.5x. Otherwise no chance for DayZ. If some really cool content would be presented, then maybe players would peak at 10K for a month or two, but without gameplay they will not stay.

No it doesn't.  DayZ is not about getting loot fast just to go pew pew with everyone.  Unfortunately for players like you, you will have to wait for mods to come out that will hand out loot to you like candy so you won't have to play the survival part of the game

[Sqeezorz 839]

1 hour ago, Guy Smiley said:

No it doesn't.  DayZ is not about getting loot fast just to go pew pew with everyone.  Unfortunately for players like you, you will have to wait for mods to come out that will hand out loot to you like candy so you won't have to play the survival part of the game

I think you did not quite understand Mantasisg. As I read it is not primarily for him to find the Loot and then PewPew, I never played with him, but I think he is not the Pure PewPew type.
It's more about interactions with other players.
In the past, this was simply because many of the other coast were, also PewPew aer also other, I myself also met "nice" people, even if it ended up in the death.
The game should go in one direction, the interaction almost to MUST make, if you want to have good Loot what I mean with it: "The game and the AI should be so that you can enter some areas and places not alone, thereby becoming dying, or ill, or giving up.
I understand this more in this direction.

[Guy Smiley 534]

24 minutes ago, Sqeezorz said:

I think you did not quite understand Mantasisg. As I read it is not primarily for him to find the Loot and then PewPew, I never played with him, but I think he is not the Pure PewPew type.
It's more about interactions with other players.
In the past, this was simply because many of the other coast were, also PewPew aer also other, I myself also met "nice" people, even if it ended up in the death.
The game should go in one direction, the interaction almost to MUST make, if you want to have good Loot what I mean with it: "The game and the AI should be so that you can enter some areas and places not alone, thereby becoming dying, or ill, or giving up.
I understand this more in this direction.

Read his entire post.  He boiled it down to players were around and interacting because loot was abundant on the coast which is not the vision that the developers want.  He wants the abundant loot around again.  And the interaction was just straight up gunfights. Spawn, grab loot, fight, die, respawn.  Horrible gameplay

[sneakydude 480]

It is clear from the new topics that .63 has to be released so game play will evolve from that.

Everything else, pretty much before .63 can be thrown out and start fresh. I am hoping to see Dayz SA turn into a fun game.

[pilgrim* 3514]

Player base?

Lets look at where the player base is coming from (people who play video games) and see what they play.. OK?
Just sticking to the category area = FPS, Survival,  Survival-Strategy, Action

Where do we GET a player base from?  Let's look.

Because I guess people play what they think is fun, right? ...

 

1 ) Games bought for PC :  (categories: FPS, Survival; Survival-Strategy, Action)

TOP selling scores:

DOOM III = 3.5 millon
Crysis = 3 million
Dayz = 3 million
Rust = 3 million
ARMA III = 3 million
Counter-Strike CC = 2.5 million
Far Cry = 2.5
Battlefield 1942 = 2.4
Counter-Strike S = 2.1 million
7 Dayz to Die = 1.5 million

- these do not count "MMORPG" games & online subscription games
& not counting "Real Time Strategy" games.

2 ) Games bought for Console:  (categories: FPS, Survival; Survival-Strategy, Action)

TOP selling scores (but just SOME of them, OK, there are 100+ games well over the 10 million sales)
In our general category:

CoD Black = 26 million
CoD MW 3 =26 million
CoD Black 2 = 24 million
Pokemon D&P   = 23 million < .. joke>
CoD MW 3 = 23 million
CoD Ghosts = 19 million
GtA     = 17 million
CoD4 WaW = 16 million
CoD5  = 15 million
Battlefield 3 = 15 million

.. etc

Did I miss out important stuff? It's shows about right for comparing sales figures in and around this game category.

So -  the gamers (the buyers) are voting by more than 50 to1 that "FUN" means  CoD on a Console.   If your  Target #1  is serious player-base, that's the way to go.

Is this what we are aiming for with 6.3 ?

(but .. didn't it it used to be that "CoD" was a kind of insult on this blog?)

*

[ Just making the base-obvious point. To see what people want, look at the figures. Then discuss strategic options ]

[libertine 351]

I think they just need to make it a really good, compelling game that fits their original goals and then label it as such ("2.0" or change the name to DayZ: The Experience, or whatever, just an example) and market that info when its all done. People will check it out again, but when they do, they need to see something compelling again, you've got that one chance for most people probably. I hate to say it, but IMO they've got a long way to go. Color palette looks like super saturated Borderlands for f sake when its sunny.

Edited September 23, 2017 by libertine

[Mantasisg 172]

I hope a lot of people feel the way I do. I want to play DayZ again, but I'm too afraid to launch pre-beta once more and be dissappointed again, I know that like always I might not get anything from it. I would just be going through empty buildings in empty towns - depression simulator. But I hope that 0.63 is not a long way ahead, and that it will be ENTERTAINING again. I could launch PUBG to get a some a bit similar moments like in DayZ, but it really is nowhere near DayZ, totally different. In DayZ you have a life and story. PUBG is fun, but it just hasn't that soul DayZ had (should have again).

MAKE DAYZ GREAT. Not saying "again", because it wasn't yet :D

[JPWiser 251]

Get out of Alpha and finish the game lol?

But those of us players that left a long time ago know that's never happening.

Ive tried coming back, and its the same, boring, unfinished, 60person huge map where everyone sits in Elektro and camps because there is literally nothing else of substance to do....

So you either go there for deathmatch or play for hours without seeing a single person.

With no dynamic events, no interesting weaponry, a shitty buggy loot distribution, horribly designed vehicles, and unreliable persistence system.

Oh, and wasn't this supposed to be a zombie game?  I have on my facebook from almost 3 years ago an update about "zombie hordes, and new animations" ... Hows that coming along? Youd think in a zombie game, after FOUR years of development, the zombies would be finished or at least a primary focus of the gameplay as there is literally no other dynamic events or server side controlled things outside of looting a bunch of fancy clothing, oh and the packs of wolves that at least when I picked up the game again after a couple years, were completely broken af...

Let me guess?  "This is all being worked on and coming with the new engine!"  

Am I right?  Theyve been saying that for 3+ years now lol.

I'm sure a couple things have been partially addressed but its unfortunate I used to be one of the biggest fans, to come here a couple years later, and see this same shit.

RIP

PubG is only 30$ BETA as a side note to put in comparison, reaching almost 1.3 million players daily....Is insanely fun, and I even said to myself once... This is sort of what DayZ COULD have been if they didn't take all of our money and abandon the project to a handful of people that have no hope in hell of ever finishing it.

 

Cheers 

 

Edited September 29, 2017 by JPWiser

[Mantasisg 172]

6 hours ago, JPWiser said:

Ive tried coming back, and its the same, boring, unfinished, 60person huge map where everyone sits in Elektro and camps because there is literally nothing else of substance to do....

So you either go there for deathmatch or play for hours without seeing a single person.

 

 

Actually you barely meet anyone in the coast towns too, maybe you just have had luck to get into the mass gathering in electro. Usually hardly anyone is there, no loot at the coasts makes it so, actually no loot anywhere. I guess if we would get current players distribution map, then whole map would be +- covered and thats why there are very little interactions with only 60players, and practically with no vehicles. The last time I have played I have met a few people in Berezino, but there was no loot, hence no point to stay.

This as a game was a big disappointment for a while. 

[kopo79 426]

i think that 60 player per server is good....for me 50 is fine also.
player interactions should be tried to achieve with gameplay changes...there should be some loot on shores,,,maybe some crates from boats...make hospitals and supermarkets more important.
antibiotics,bandages,other medicines should be important but without proper diseases(flus,fever)and overpowered rags....you dont need medicine at the moment.
 

[Mantasisg 172]

Some are playing in servers with less than 10 people. Some are ghosting, and thats shit. And some are just happy to be alone all the time, and thats shit too, but gotta respect that for them it is awesome.

And thats probably more than half of AC players. 

I remember when I have been invited to join few fellows to play together. They had a low population server, basically collected all the loot to their base, and from there ghosting to all the hot servers - such smart wow. Sadly this is one of the reason why there are so many very low populated servers, and that is one of the big issues with DayZ. Only private servers where you can not ghost makes sense really.

And there used to be nice loot in hostpitals, office buildings, police stations, fire stations were hot spots.... Everything is empty now lol

 

[Lexman61 78]

When discussing the topic of "player base" I guess there are basically two ways of looking at it:

1. The raw overall numbers of online players of any game.

2. The "sustainable" or necessary number of players needed for a satisfactory online gaming experience.

Personally I would prefer to discuss about what is a "sustainable player base" for DayZ rather than simply comparing numerical figures with other more popular FPS and/or survival games.

I think it's fair to say that, presently the official Steam chart for DayZ's player count is low, whether it is sustainable or not in the long run is yet to bee seen. Don't really think that a huge amount of old players will come back or that a massive number of fresh recruits will suddenly populate the servers. Unless of course, the future console version of DayZ is a total success. and creates renewed interest for this game also on the PC.

Regards

[Mantasisg 172]

There is only single way of looking at it:

http://steamcharts.com/app/221100

And those numbers are directly connected to how fun the game is.

Many says that DayZ is ded and it is overZ and so on..... But if DayZ will pull its cards finally and actually make a GAME once and for good, then a lot of players will come back. What is needed is for it to finally to become a GAME, and start rolling out the iterations more often than once per year (and that iterations would IMPROVE the gameplay, and not the contrary, like 4-6 last iterations was doing). And thats exactly what is expected from 0.63 and post 0.63 iterations. 

Personally I'm super tired of waiting, even starting to get addicted to PUBG lol

BohemiaAAAaaaa

 

Edited October 5, 2017 by Mantasisg

[Gobbokirk 546]

6 minutes ago, Mantasisg said:

There is only single way of looking at it:

http://steamcharts.com/app/221100

And those numbers are directly connected to how fun the game is.

Those numbers have zero meaning to how I enjoy the game when/if I log on again before 0.63.

When I can't find a high pop server anywhere, then we got a problem.
Until then those numbers don't really mean anything, if they ever did before the game is finished.

[Mantasisg 172]

@Gobbokirk

Thats the spirit, man. Let the game die, but if it will still have those 200 hundred players, and one full server it is going to be perfectly fine


:(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

Lets be honest, you are playing this more than DayZ ? You would if you have tried it.

http://steamcharts.com/app/578080

Edited October 5, 2017 by Mantasisg

[Gobbokirk 546]

You might want to re-read the last sentence ;)