Status Report - 26 September 2017

[Baty Alquawen 3688]

With Brian missing this week (no worries, he will be back at full force next time!), Eugen and Peter reflect upon the new features and content presented at Gamescom. Eugen is finally sharing our full 0.63 Dev Log video with 16 minutes of Gamescom DEMO gameplay in Full HD, Peter is reacting to some of the community feedback regarding the missing naked eye zoom and new key binds for firearms, and Martin and Baty share some of the good vibes from our community (both the one at EGX, where they travelled last week, and online!). Let's do some reading and watching folks, it's a juicy Status Report once again!

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Contents This Week

• Dev Update/Eugen
• Dev Update/Peter
• Dev Update/Martin
• Community Spotlight

 

Dev Update/Eugen

The last two weeks had us focused on different issues in the base and core features of DayZ. As previously mentioned, these are tackled through smaller scrum teams that are dedicated to these topics. Currently, we are running ranged combat team with focus on weapons and another one focused on melee combat. More are expected to be set up from vehicles to Central Economy or the infected. These should enable much faster iteration that can deliver on their goals as the technology requires less changes under the hood.

This means that we are no longer tied to larger technology changes and can focus on the stuff that’s important to us and players alike: things that tackle immediate concerns that have troubled the game for a very long time. The approach we chose is based around priorities that carry through to other features, so we spend less time going back and redoing stuff over and over.

Current priorities started with base movement of the character, which defines a lot of the work that is going to happen in both melee and ranged combat. Once we nail down the details, we can quickly implement and iterate things like player speed changing with rotation or rotation limits in order to cut on the erratic movement that is usually described as "zig-zagging".

There are tons of things like these that community cares very deeply about. We take this feedback very seriously. Lot of these things have driven community interaction over these years. Bugs that we didn’t fix, features that didn’t have consistency or detail or were missing entirely. There is a reason behind everything. We spend a lot of time on figuring these out and once we are happy with our solutions we are going to get the discussion going. The process, however, requires you to test them in-game and that is where we go from prototype to full fledged feature.

The thing is you try, and go for functionality first before the visuals get polished. It usually does not matter if it looks good if you’re developing the game. But it’s also the reason we don’t show many of these things that are in their early implementation. because they are just functional enough for us to iterate, but not polished enough to present ourselves with. That brings me to the next important thing.

Imagine all these great things created with placeholders or skeletons of functionality that we look into and keep iterating on.

Ideas are just ideas and they usually change for the better as development moves forward. What seems fun and good on paper though sometimes does not translate well in-game. If the technology used is layered enough to let designers test their ideas, we know we can differentiate the bad from the good. I don’t believe that we always come up with best solutions on the first iteration, and so that's why we listen to your feedback.

Even when I look at our 0.63 Dev Log video below, I know (and see) tons of issues that just irritate me. But I’m not alone and this team is the best I had the chance to work with, and I have no doubt we can solve the issues. BETA can not come soon enough!

That said, we would like to focus on covering these hot topics and how we solved them in the current iteration, because we bleed passion for what DayZ should be.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the video!

- Eugen Harton / Lead Producer

 

Dev Update/Peter

After DEMO showcase at Gamescom, many of you expressed concerns about missing zoom with naked eye as well as toggling to aim down the sights.

First off all, I want to underline that absence of naked eye zoom was intentional as we run into technical problems due interference with switching to iron sights, witch was key-binded to middle mouse button. Time was running out and instead of fixing the old camera behaviour, we decided to cut it completely, so that we can start implementing a new camera from scratch to allow us to have more control over it (which is being worked on right now).

Anyway, now when that dynamic zoom is currently missing, we can start asking questions: is it really needed? How does it contribute to gameplay? What are the pros and cons? Eye zoom is kind of a long-term trademark of Bohemia Interactive games, the same way as the free look being independent on character movement. Simulation of mid to long range engagement wouldn’t be possible without such feature, as fluid, on demand changing of field of view from wide to correct perspective is needed there, typically for observing your surroundings and during gunfights. Without it, characters are just small group of pixels in distance, and probably no-one enjoys pixel hunting.

On the other hand, we know that in the case we gave the player character some supernatural abilities, we would lower the importance of items which should be used in such situations, like binoculars or scopes (which can be used even while not mounted on a weapon). Currently, these have very limited use among players, as naked eye zoom (or focus if you want to call it like that) is enough for them to observe environment.

Also, there is a bit of a problem with continuous switching of object LODs and textures, which puts additional pressure on the CPU/GPU. While this would still be the case with binos and scopes as well, these changes to FOV are instant and not continuous. Missing eye zoom will lead to bringing player engagements to much closer distances - and that’s the most important thing in DayZ - player interactions.

Final decision hasn't been made yet - personally, I’m inclined to keeping this feature in the game, but even in the worse case scenario, aiming down sights will maintain correct perspective (with a bit of added zoom while holding breath to simulate focus), to avoid aforementioned pixel hunting during gunfights.

I mentioned aiming down sights and we are aware that current keybind (middle mouse button click while raised) is far from ideal as it feels clunky - exactly opposite to real life, where aiming down sights is as simple as just moving your head and aligning the eye with sights. What is really important to me is the fact that there shouldn’t be any toggle into the aimed stance (raised nor iron sights/scopes). Which means character should go ideally to an idle pose when all controls are released. Toggle-able aggressive stance can unintentionally fiddle with character’s body language, which disrupts gameplay and the experience players have during their interactions.

Currently, we are experimenting with different approaches of switching to iron sights while raised. Key-bind on keyboard can work, but I’m not a fan of it as it destroys the basic firearm controls between mouse and keyboard.

On standard mouse, there is only two buttons which come as possible candidates to use - middle mouse button, and right mouse button. Scrolling up with the mouse wheel to aim down sights is much better than precisely clicking the wheel, also it’s meant for switching between iron sights and scope in case the given firearm allows it (think AKs and other guns from the eastern block, or additional sights mounted on RIS from the side of a weapon) and for cycling through scope zoom levels (for example hunting scope).

Personally, I prefer a simple double click and holding right mouse button (basically double click without releasing the button after the second click of button) as a shortcut to switch directly from lowered arms to iron sights. To switch back from aiming down sights (ADS), just release the right button, click and hold it again (same for toggling from raise to ADS). These two methods are far better and we will most likely keep both.

Last but not least, we've recently implemented turns to the movement itself (until now in 0.63, turns was only in idle) which is a game changer. It simply prevents zigzagging (which is used for dodging bullets) by limiting character rotation speed and adding rotation radius to turns while the player is moving. It’s scaled with character speed - the faster the movement, the bigger the radius is. There are still some issues that we are know need to be ironed out (in reality, nobody can see their back while doing 180 degree turns) and there is a bunch of missing features which will make it better and more visually pleasing (like tilting the character while making turns).

Sprint Turns GIF (I don't know why I can't embed it here...)

This solution differs from full-fledged inertia system, which can lead to players feeling like they are driving a tank with all that acceleration, deceleration and stopping after sharp turns. We want to thoroughly test it now, to feel how it plays and if it’s capable enough to achieve our goal of having smooth navigation through environment - as we definitely would like to maintain the hardly earned responsiveness and smoothness of the new character.

Without zigzagging... see you in Chernarus folks!

- Peter Nespesny / Lead Designer

 

Dev Update/Martin

Survivors! After a vicious editing battle that took waaaay longer than we all had planned, we were finally able to deliver the 0.63 Dev Log today. It's taking a quick (well, relatively quick, it's some 16 minutes of gameplay!) look at the key things that we presented at Gamescom last month.

Let me just quickly give credits to Baty and our QA Engineer Dan Fialka for their tireless work on the actual gameplay capture - as I have said in the previous Status Report, it's not always an easy work tinkering with the internal build. I hope you'll all appreciate the early look at 0.63 at least in this format - it's certainly not the same as experiencing the new animation system and player controller first hand, but it's the best we can do now. 

Suffice to say, this Dev Log was a good learning experience and it made us rethink the way we produce video content for DayZ. Going forward, we want to streamline the creative process behind making development videos, and hopefully find a good, effective workflow for gameplay capture in 0.63.

Last week, me and Baty also visited EGX in Birmingham, and boy: did we meet a lot of awesome people! Originally, our visit was really planned as a last-minute trip, as we just wanted to meet a couple of DayZ content creators at EGX - there was no booth involved like at Gamescom, and we only packed a bunch of DayZ lanyards just in case.

Somehow, we ended up meeting with some 30 fellow survivors at once, occupying half of the EGX business lounge and demoing 0.63 to everybody (thanks to Matthew and the rest of the EGX organisers for not kicking us out!). 

Blue and Queenie, M1ndr, SepticFalcon and Dzoana all had their mods and friends there, we've also finally met the Twitter super-spammer Spaggie (and his friend @EssexRockerz!)... well I would like to name everybody we met, but it would make for a really long list. Thanks everyone for coming and chatting with us (and thanks Baty for talking me into the trip!), you all make the best, most dedicated community out there.

We'll definitely be back to EGX next year, hopefully with a more official presence and a proper booth! Here's a couple of photos (credits to N-Reid!) and Tweets from the event:

- Martin Čulák/ Brand Manager

 

Community Spotlight

Hey Survivors!

I hope you had amazing two weeks. As Martin mentioned, we were at EXG and it was epic, thanks everyone for coming. It was nice to meet you all!

Let's start with the Real Chernarus by BrenUno, who‘s been there and took some amazing pictures for the community. Can you recognize all these places?  

Streamer DeadlySlob did an amazing and very funny role-play video, where he acts as a drug addicted person. Other players were really surprised by his behaviour. We love it!

Let's check out some art. I chose three guys from community today, who are amazing artists and did nice job on their artworks. They have really similar style and we really like this.

 

The first one is Will. He did two artworks inspired by Chernarus.

 

And the second one is by Squad_Crow, who did his view of Novodmitrovsk and Lopatino Castle.

 

AFX was on Rose City Comic Con in Portland as a survivor from DayZ. She had everything that the true survivor needs - duck tape, military boots and a long stick with an apple! I don't know if she killed any infected on her trip but she is definitely ready for it!

 

French server Team Onu is preparing an event again. It is called Manhunt - Dark Walk and it will be tomorrow and you can see more info after you log in to their web pages. Here is a little teaser for it.

If you prepare any event for your community, just let me know on my Twitter and someone from our team can be there too.

 

And I have a riddle for you today. Can you recognize this place? Tweet it to the official DayZ Twitter, I want to know how many players we have, who know the map very well!

I know it is easy for hardcore players, but I will do a harder one next time.

 

I am so happy to see all your content guys, no kidding. I try to watch all your videos, pictures and everything you post to our social networks or Reddit. Thank you for that and for your support, because we need it. We really appreciate to know that YOU CARE about DayZ. Because DayZ is love, DayZ is life for us.

Header image by Sahindi.

 

- Baty / Community Manager

 

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

 

Quote

Final decision hasn't been made yet - personally, I’m inclined to keeping this feature in the game, but even in the worse case scenario, aiming down sights will maintain correct perspective (with a bit of added zoom while holding breath to simulate focus), to avoid aforementioned pixel hunting during gunfights.

 

 

This is counterproductive. I use the eye zoom for much more than fights.  In fact use it to AVOID fights. I use it literally ALL the time. The solution above is simply not a solution. Now if we want to just look at something with a greater zoom in order to determine what it is we'll need to raise our weapons AND aim down the sites? A raised weapon is an indicator of hostile intentions and needing to ADS just to see if what you saw was a player or something interesting is going to lead to more KOS and even more fumbling with keys to accomplish simple acts that many of us have been using for 5 years.

Eye zoom is a requirement for this game. There is no way around it.

Edited September 26, 2017 by sausagekingofchicago

[OliverPlotTwist 458]

[ImageCtrl 719]

32 minutes ago, sausagekingofchicago said:

Eye zoom is a requirement for this game. There is no way around it.

As bonus eye zoom looks damn sexy on youtube.

I remember the first time discovering BI-game movement in arma 2. I thought: "Damn this is soooo cool..."

 

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

Oh, and I've not read, heard, or seen anything about leaning.  That too is required in my humble opinion.  I can't even imagine playing this game without either of those features.

 

(not being a hater, I'm a hardcore fan but.. the fact there's even a discussion on the dev level about not including the eye zoom worries me)

Edited September 26, 2017 by sausagekingofchicago

[OneStep 13]

Nice video, cannot wait for 0.63.

About the abillity to manually zoom:
It is not supernatural at all - in real life you are able to see things way better in the distance than in games, that is because you try to fit "insert your fov" onto a screen that is not big enough to simulate that amount of fov properly - so it gets scaled accordingly.
Talking about fov, people that use higher fovs (because they like to or get headaches otherwise) will suffer with the loss of this feature as the problem of pixel hunting gets worse the higher your fov is set to - the zooming feature is a great way to counteract that issue. You also mentioned tying zoom to the holding breath feature like most games do - however, this is really annoying and a bad design decision as holding breath is temporary (constantly having to wait for the abillity is annoying duh) and people do not always want to zoom when holding their breath - that would essentially make the zoom feature less dynamic.

And please, do not make any zoom effect/fov change when going into iron sights mode - many games do that making CQB really useless when trying to aim down sights.
Best way to deal with it is the same way bohemia games have always done it, letting the user manually change it by using his zoom buttons.

22 minutes ago, sausagekingofchicago said:

Oh, and I've not read, heard, or seen anything about leaning.  That too is required in my humble opinion.  I can't even imagine playing this game without either of those features.

 

(not being a hater, I'm a hardcore fan but.. the fact there's even a discussion on the dev level about not including the eye zoom worries me)

And this, what about leaning?
Leaning is really important especially for first person only players.

Edited September 26, 2017 by OneStep

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

The combat looked really smooth at the end of the video otherwise.  Someone else pointed out the range and fire mode being in the center of the screen near the crosshairs, kudos for that for damn sure.

[Gadget_97 28]

So the character will recover his stamina while jogging :(

[OneStep 13]

To add to this.
I also think that the view of the player should not follow the weapon sway when aiming down sights as it makes it really hard to scan for movement if your cam is constantly moving.
The human eye is really good at identifying movement, that is the main way we spot things - having the cam constantly move gets in the way.

Edited September 26, 2017 by OneStep

[joe_mcentire 2074]

2 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

 

Man... the wait is really gruesome and i really never ever want to see a game so long in early access, but your engine has really come a long way. i am not sure if i speak for many but i think this is very relieving footage for anyone (still or again) interested in this game.

 

2 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

Anyway, now when that dynamic zoom is currently missing, we can start asking questions: is it really needed? How does it contribute to gameplay? What are the pros and cons? Eye zoom is kind of a long-term trademark of Bohemia Interactive games, the same way as the free look being independent on character movement. Simulation of mid to long range engagement wouldn’t be possible without such feature, as fluid, on demand changing of field of view from wide to correct perspective is needed there, typically for observing your surroundings and during gunfights. Without it, characters are just small group of pixels in distance, and probably no-one enjoys pixel hunting.

On the other hand, we know that in the case we gave the player character some supernatural abilities, we would lower the importance of items which should be used in such situations, like binoculars or scopes (which can be used even while not mounted on a weapon). Currently, these have very limited use among players, as naked eye zoom (or focus if you want to call it like that) is enough for them to observe environment.

Also, there is a bit of a problem with continuous switching of object LODs and textures, which puts additional pressure on the CPU/GPU. While this would still be the case with binos and scopes as well, these changes to FOV are instant and not continuous. Missing eye zoom will lead to bringing player engagements to much closer distances - and that’s the most important thing in DayZ - player interactions.

Final decision hasn't been made yet - personally, I’m inclined to keeping this feature in the game, but even in the worse case scenario, aiming down sights will maintain correct perspective (with a bit of added zoom while holding breath to simulate focus), to avoid aforementioned pixel hunting during gunfights.

Was one of the people opposed to the magnifying eye since i can think of and somewhat still are, i also expect to see some sort of soft trade-off for the people in favor of that feature to be implemented. So here a simple proposal just off the top of my head:

Remove the dynamic zoom BUT use spots or dashes (in various degrees of e.g. opacitiy) to indicate moving objects in the distance which might be only revealed with the dynamic zoom feature otherwise....but might be too complicated for what it actually adds to the table. :D

[joe_mcentire 2074]

2 hours ago, sausagekingofchicago said:

Eye zoom is a requirement for this game. There is no way around it.

Shirley, you can't be serious. I very much agree that it's easy to get used to and rely on it but i do not think that it is a requirement. there can be other ways i strongly believe.

 

1 hour ago, OneStep said:

Nice video, cannot wait for 0.63.

About the abillity to manually zoom:
It is not supernatural at all - in real life you are able to see things way better in the distance than in games, that is because you try to fit "insert your fov" onto a screen that is not big enough to simulate that amount of fov properly - so it gets scaled accordingly.
Talking about fov, people that use higher fovs (because they like to or get headaches otherwise) will suffer with the loss of this feature as the problem of pixel hunting gets worse the higher your fov is set to - the zooming feature is a great way to counteract that issue. You also mentioned tying zoom to the holding breath feature like most games do - however, this is really annoying and a bad design decision as holding breath is temporary (constantly having to wait for the abillity is annoying duh) and people do not always want to zoom when holding their breath - that would essentially make the zoom feature less dynamic.

And please, do not make any zoom effect/fov change when going into iron sights mode - many games do that making CQB really useless when trying to aim down sights.
Best way to deal with it is the same way bohemia games have always done it, letting the user manually change it by using his zoom buttons.

How about an automatically initated dynamic zoom for when you stop, stand still and stare into the distance for x seconds. This triggers your dynamic zoom mode and you can carefully watch with enhanced vision, a movement or  a cooldown after y seconds (decreasing focus) and you are out, the view goes back to normal...?

It makes sense to somehow reward the use of ingame objects like binos 

Edited September 26, 2017 by joe_mcentire

[Legion252 7]

Looks amazing, can't wait to get my hands on this. Hopefully next status report we can get some word on the status of vehicles for .63 since with limited stamina vehicles are going to be much more important for getting around the map. Vehicles in their current state are too hard to find and get stuck on terrain too easily. 

[Espa 711]

Good stuff! Keep the Eye-Zoom out!!! You guys are totally right when you say it'll boost the importance of Binos/Scopes as well as bring character interaction to much closer distances!

Thanks for the infos! Can't wait to see when Beta comes out!

[rscl 11]

OMG how ppl can make such bad game design choices.

The most important parametr for game desinger when he is making a decision should be GAMEPLAY added value - not some ridiculous statements as "oh smth is not realistic, its a super power bla bla" - it doesnt matter ITS A GAME its not a REAL LIFE simulator for this we have ASG paintball and wars.

From the gameplay perspective taking into account graphical and FOV limitations, ingame view isnt even matching real life view ur a handicapped kid in comparism to real life. Decreasing zoom-in from the level of A2 DayZ to current DayZ SA level was a mistake alone but this  ? Really ? What is ingame zoom ? Its ability to focus on fly on some really cutted down piece of view to actaully see anything on a distance (worth to notice by this ur intentionally decresing your field of view so its risk/reward factor not a free candy) - its thanks to graphics and FOV/technology limits. U saying ppl being "kinda blind" is creating more players interactions because they gona see eachother in closer ranges ? OMG its totally logically opposite! If you cant spot player from a distance YOU CANT NOTICE HIM - therefore there is no interaction! He cant see u, u cant see him u both running in ur original directions missing eachother. Its the A2 DayZ zoom focus level was what was good allowing players to spot eachother at the distance and make their moves and THIS was bringing players interaction which should be promoted by any cost since its MMO and not some single player game. How can u be so blind ? Your conclusions are exactly opposite to reality your diagnose is totally wrong. Going further with exactly this logic why not remove free camera looking around with ur head ? In real life ppl are not running heaving their head pointed backward on 70% degrees as we have it now ? If u cant lookaround freely its causing bumping into other player at closer distance since u cant spot them in a lot more % of the scenarios so following your logic its should "promore close quater interactions" - how silly does that sound ?

I can say you only this, players are already passed being hyped about this game but still some of them are hoping u gona provide propper engine so the modders can do the DayZ how its supposed to be. With removing ingame eye zoom you just litreally nailing last nail to your cofin. 

 

My last appeal for your common sense - if you gona at the end make this huge mistake and disable ingame eye zoom - at least MAKE IT NOT HARDCODED so the modders can make their mods the way they like, same goes with those wierd new controls aiming etc ideas - OMG its a game u should aim and shoot with mouse ALONE really ? Keyboard ? Maybe few keys at once ? omg Doesnt really no1 notice for example simple fact that neccesity of having right mouse button cliced down to be aimed in is inconveniant for the player and is making his real life aim worse ? have u player any other FPP game (succesfull one) which has such mechanic ? - NO - because its inconveniant and unnatural for players.

I am a game designer myself and when im reading those changes and its justifications/thought process behind them - im just grabbing my head and yes this post is emotional but its because DayZ and to be more clear its specific mod (DayZero) gave me the best gaming experience in my whole gaming life - this is where from the emotions come.

[pilgrim* 3514]

3 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

dynamic zoom is currently missing, we can start asking questions: is it really needed?

OF COURSE IT IS REALLY NEEDED ... are 3D games really needed ?

Very sad to see BI take a head dive backwards into the past.  Remember that game-control of field of vision moves OUT as well as IN... this is not a "zoom" - it is a clever simulation of attention, concentration, hunting focus, and peripheral vision - the natural human binocular rangefinding and attention/ visulal-concentration & awareness abilities that cannot be depicted on a flat screen with no simulation effect. Just CANT...  Back to the days of DOOM 1 I guess...  

Great pity - the BI eyesight simulation was VERY well thought out and endlessly USEFUL and IMMERSIVE... 

You lose 100 points. I cant follow you that way.  Sorry flat-worlders. 

BIG BIG ERROR

xx p

   

Edited September 26, 2017 by pilgrim*
~

[calabacin2 11]

YES! no more dynamic zoom, please! realism is a big part of the game. If you want to zoom in, you will have to use optics.

[rscl 11]

For all "YEAH no dynamic zoom forum posters"

No dynamic ZOOM = Less players interactions

Cant see eachoter at bigger distance = miss eachoter and following their path without altering it in order to interact spotted player.

How ppl cant understand this basics of logic thinking. 

 

[Pliskinki 52]

I say: Remove the Eye zoom, so players have the NEED to use binoculars and other proper zooming stuff. It is not as you can't see stuff without eye zooming. This is supposed to be a legit harsh game after all.

[sanguine00 168]

I'm getting the impression that removing eye zoom isn't even really a design "choice".  Sounds like it's causing them technical problems that they don't really want to solve.  That would be a shame.

From the video, I'm interested in the item pick up animation. When you hit "F" to pick up an item, do you have to stay still until the pick up animation is completed? Can you begin running while the animation is playing and still receive the item, or would that cancel the pick up process?

If they're going to force an item pick up animation, then I think you should be able to pick up items on the run, as it's actually less realistic to have to come to a full stop and wait for an animation before you can accept the item. It could also result in great frustration during "high stress situations" to borrow a term from Eugen.

I'm not going to lie - I'm a bit apprehensive.  All of the improvements seem well-thought-out but I'm scared the end result will feel more like an amalgamation of the best qualities of DayZ's clones rather than DayZ itself.  I guess I'm just anxious to get my hands on it. :)

[ImageCtrl 719]

30 minutes ago, Pliskin Scout said:

I say: Remove the Eye zoom, so players have the NEED to use binoculars and other proper zooming stuff. It is not as you can't see stuff without eye zooming. This is supposed to be a legit harsh game after all.

The old movement (with zoom) fits to "a legit harsh game".

 

Edited September 27, 2017 by ImageCtrl

[Pliskinki 52]

2 hours ago, ImageCtrl said:

What you ask for fits to H1Z1.

Well, whatever you say.

The EYE* zooming is not a necessary feature for this game in no way and if removed would improve the controllers of it a lot, try removing the eagle eye zooming in Arma 3 and messing around with your controllers for a more "fluid" approach. You will soon realize that it only gets real fluid when you remove eye zooming.

If they remove the eye zooming, and add a well thought mechanic for zooming while using weapons (I do believe that the PUBG approach on zooming only when holding breath is a neat one), the handling of aiming/target acquisition will be just on point. So I insist, remove eye zooming.

Either way, I vow for the Devs to decide, do not simply listen to the community, have your own approach about this, only then, the game will really go for an unique direction. Keep focus on what you believe DayZ Devs.

In beta we trust.

Edited September 27, 2017 by Pliskin Scout

[-Gews- 7443]

5 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

Dev Update/Peter

After DEMO showcase at Gamescom, many of you expressed concerns about missing zoom with naked eye as well as toggling to aim down the sights.First off all, I want to underline that absence of naked eye zoom was intentional as we run into technical problems due interference with switching to iron sights, witch was key-binded to middle mouse button. Time was running out and instead of fixing the old camera behaviour, we decided to cut it completely, so that we can start implementing a new camera from scratch to allow us to have more control over it (which is being worked on right now).

Fair enough.

5 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

Simulation of mid to long range engagement wouldn’t be possible without such feature

Correct.

5 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

On the other hand, we know that in the case we gave the player character some supernatural abilities

I wouldn't say the ability to see a realistic distance is a 'supernatural ability'.

5 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

we would lower the importance of items which should be used in such situations, like binoculars or scopes (which can be used even while not mounted on a weapon). Currently, these have very limited use among players, as naked eye zoom (or focus if you want to call it like that) is enough for them to observe environment.

Binoculars and scopes should be used when things are too far away to see properly. Binoculars and scopes should NOT be needed to distinguish people (as opposed to dark pixel blobs) a mere 200 or 300 yards off. 

In 0.62 I find a magnifying optic is extremely useful for spotting players—'eye zoom' alone does not match up.

Naked eyes should be enough to observe your environment. Today I watched someone walking in a field of tall grass, and their two dogs running alongside, at approximately 950-1050 meters. Small, yes, but neither bionic eyes or binoculars were necessary to simply see them. Note that I can't do that in DayZ, even with 0.62 'eye zoom'.

 

5 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

Missing eye zoom will lead to bringing player engagements to much closer distances - and that’s the most important thing in DayZ - player interactions.

As mentioned above, the inability to see properly would lead to people simply not seeing other players, and walking by one another without ever noticing. 

See better = more interactions.

 

6 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

Final decision hasn't been made yet - personally, I’m inclined to keeping this feature in the game

Good to hear.
 

6 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

but even in the worse case scenario, aiming down sights will maintain correct perspective

"Correct perspective" = zoom? In this case, characters with guns can see better—which would not make sense.

 

6 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

(with a bit of added zoom while holding breath to simulate focus)

If we have a correct perspective, assuming this means appropriate minFOV, I don't think added zoom is necessary. And I don't think holding breath should affect eyesight. Since, 1. Focusing on a distant object is not something you can only do for a few seconds, 2. the correct perspective / zoom already represents 'focus', in a way, and 3. if we were after top accuracy we would be focusing on front sight anyways.


Anyways it is nice to see a response on this topic and I hope the feature is kept as is.

 

1 hour ago, Pliskin Scout said:

The zooming is not a necessary feature for this game in no way

"Simulation of mid to long range engagement wouldn’t be possible without such feature ..."


 

 

2 hours ago, calabacin2 said:

YES! no more dynamic zoom, please! realism is a big part of the game. If you want to zoom in, you will have to use optics.

"We know that zoomed fov or ironsights must be 45° because it emulates the eye and we stated earlier that 45° is realistic."
 

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

Thanks, devs and all involved!

I'm really looking forward to experimenting on this new test bed and beginning the iteration process anew!

Feature by feature we will bork what you make, make you do it over, change it, demand polish for it, and guide your cheeto stained fingers to coding an exhilarating and ever fluid experience.

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ GIVE SA .63!

[pilgrim* 3514]

10 hours ago, Pliskin Scout said:

The EYE* zooming is not a necessary feature for this game 
..//..
do not simply listen to the community, have your own approach about this, only then, the game will really go for an unique direction. Keep focus on what you believe DayZ Devs.

So the Zoom OUT will be dumped too.. right? .. Having a wider  (or narrower)  field of vision  is according to Pilskin "not a necessary feature"
So I guess we will be getting rid of 3PP too,  so players CANT  "zoom OUT" - for instance into 3PP  - in the current .. quote .. <<unnatural and 'unnecessary' manner>> 

We will be all 1PP with just a 'magic'  zoom when you point a weapon at something?  Isn't that what the 'Anti-Zoomers' are looking for? That will certainly simplify gameplay and make it less realistic.  Will it make the people who don't understand eyesight into 1PP happy bunnies?  No zoom in either direction.. That is what THEY seem to call "realism"

At the moment in DayZ players can widen their field of view or reduce their field of view.  IRL human beings are EXTREMELY good at this, the human brain is wired to process "eyesight" for specific & complex reasons. A 2D flat screen cannot imitate this.  - thoughtless players use the term  "ZOOM"  to describe both  IN or OUT - and both are available right now. Go test it out, compare it to reality.

So -effectively - We dump 3PP totally and make the game more "realistic"  - to please these strange players - the casual happy bunnies who REALLY don't understand how human eyesight works, and don't want to "ZOOM" in either direction for any "unrealistic" eyesight simulation -   This is what they want:  Give them what they want - fixed 1PP POV. = End of subject.

Then they won"t complain about "zoom" - lol.

 

* * *

 

= I'm astonished NO ONE (including the Devs) mention that the DayZ  angle of vision goes BOTH WAYS.. Sounds to me very clear there is a discussion (a problem) behind the scenes concerning a DIFFICULTY with the software, and the Devs are doing their best to rationalize this, to invent or encourage  a plausible excuse for messing with the IN/OUT field of view.. <just the "IN" side of it, not the "OUT", right devs? >  .. but this gameplay "improvement" balderdash is in fact mooted  for technical software reasons NOT AT ALL for realism, simulation or for gameplay ..  

Be honest ?

 

Edited September 27, 2017 by pilgrim*
~

[St. Jimmy 1631]

I would be ok with no zoom or less zoom when running because you don't really focus much when moving fast. Walking and standing still needs focus mode.