When will gameplay be introduced?

[Henk Grunn 16]

The game is now almost 4 years in EA. The upcomming patch shows nothing related to improve the core gameplay. 

The current status of the survival mechanics:

The player spawns. The Average player then will have basic gear (clothing, weapon+ammo), and will be fully fed and energized within about 2 hours (with really bad luck, perhaps 3 or 4 hours). And that's it for survival. The player is now energized, and it's a breeze to keep this level up. From then on, the games gives the player no more incentives to do anything. The chance of being shot is extremely slim, and zeds are no problemo. That was it for survival. max 4 hours of gameplay, and the rest of it is boring as....

The current status of pvp:

You will hardly see anyone on a full server. Unless on the server there are rules and directions where PVP takes place. Ofcourse those really looking for pvp will find it ( but even then it takes long) and those who want to avoid it, won't have to do much effort to avoid it.

This is a part of the description on the dayZ steam page:

DayZ is a gritty, authentic, open-world survival horror hybrid-MMO game, in which players follow a single goal: to survive in the harsh post-apocalyptic landscape as long as they can. Players can experience powerful events and emotions arising from the ever-evolving emergent gameplay.

survive a harsh post-apocalyptic landscape?  What is there to survive? Emergent gameplay, when? Perhaps when teams play against another group of players, on a server where this is organized. But not for the solo player! And especially not for the solo survivor type of player. There is literally nothing to survive from.

To have emergent gameplay, the developer of the game must create the setting with mechanics to provide that. It must provide an incentive for the player to act. 

It takes very few resources for the developer to provide these. One simple quick idea  would be to have a commodity that everyone needs ( both pvp and pve minded players) only available at very few places. For example  antibiotics only available at the main hospital. And bingo player interaction for everyone. There are plenty of ideas, without the need of lots of dev resources, to create some incentives for the players.

Instead in the new patch i see stuff like microphones in villages?! Why?? just why?

Look. This game has a very little player base for a reason. There are plenty of EA titles where people can actually enjoy the ride, because there is some decent rough gameplay. DayZ offers none of this. There is a reason why the average playercount is currently around 2300, out of  over a 3.5 million sold copies, play this on average..

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by Henk Grunn
edit the title

[nl 986]

Have the patience to wait for the final product before you rate the game...

The infected will change, player mechanics will change including stamina, there will be more wild (dangerous) animals, weather model will be improved and last but not least: modding will change the game to more "extreme" variants, be it pve or pvp, high loot, low loot and so on.

0.63 should give some indication of how the final product will play but even then there will be more added features until 1.0

[Henk Grunn 16]

4 minutes ago, nl said:

Have the patience to wait for the final product before you rate the game...

The infected will change, player mechanics will change including stamina, there will be more wild (dangerous) animals, weather model will be improved and last but not least: modding will change the game to more "extreme" variants, be it pve or pvp, high loot, low loot and so on.

0.63 should give some indication of how the final product will play but even then there will be more added features until 1.0

Well, if 0.63 will give an indication, then this game is over.

When you say patience, the playerbase could sure have that for microphones in the villages. What you are saying is, that the really gameplay improvements will come in the final patch?  There is no direction to be found the the dev builds? It will be all the the final major 1.0 patch? That will be quite a patch then.

Well I'm really excited then. Thanks. Looking forward to the 1.0 release with the actual gameplay. I hope it will be somewhere in 2018.

[DannyDog 532]

32 minutes ago, Henk Grunn said:

Well, if 0.63 will give an indication, then this game is over.

When you say patience, the playerbase could sure have that for microphones in the villages. What you are saying is, that the really gameplay improvements will come in the final patch?  There is no direction to be found the the dev builds? It will be all the the final major 1.0 patch? That will be quite a patch then.

Well I'm really excited then. Thanks. Looking forward to the 1.0 release with the actual gameplay. I hope it will be somewhere in 2018.

He means by 1.0 you can expect lots of features to have been added. Not that they'd be added after 1.0 and beyond. Also you only quoting "microphones in villages" is a shallow look on what .63 will be bringing. As well as the new movement system and gameplay mechanics not being core gameplay? I'll have to disagree with you on that.

[sneakydude 480]

didnt .63 come out today? then i looked it was 15.2mb cant be big enough?

[Tigermonk 140]

@Henk Grunn everything you're talking about is prob. coming off thre community when modding becomes a thing (in 2-3 patches until full mod tools are released) 

the devs aren't going to make this game the way you're describing it.. thats up to the community
devs only give us core/vanilla dayz.. 

sure they need more animals/planes/bikes/boats etc.

but half that is going to be able too be modded in by other people that have less time consuming tasks other then writing mods.

I agree progress has been on the slowish side but they're experiencing (brian) hick ups probably so...
just wait and see when 63 comes out.. and if thats not what you've hoped for.. then the least you can do is wait for the community to kick up modding

@sneakydude

15 MB for the .63 patch (rofl) just looking too the left ingame is 15 MB mechanic.. let alone all the new movement stuff thats coming..
when that patch hits.. be sure you'll see 2-5 gigs flashing by somewhere...

[Henk Grunn 16]

@Tigermonk

Just a correction. It's not the way I described it. I explicitly quoted what was published by the developer on the Dayz store page, on steam. I merely  gave one little example, out of the many,  on how this could be achieved. 

The example was a  method to  create an incentive for the player to  actually have to survive something. To have PVP. To have a quest for the player, to have fear and anxiety,  And to have that emergent gameplay ( as stated on the product page) To implement an idea like this, you won't need months. But it's all about priorities. That's also the reason why out of 3,5 million buyers, there are only 2300 (on average daily) playing. The priorities.

If it is really up to the community to create game play, it should have been stated on the storepage. At the moment, the description on the DayZ storepage, written by the DayZ publisher, is misrepresenting the game. Player movement will not change this. Microphones in villages will not change this either. Normally, especially when reaching beta, you should see the direction of the gameplay during the development of a game, and the several builds and the progression of it. I really have no hopes that that magic 1.0 release, that some talk about, will ever arrive.

I always had a lot of fun with games from Bohemia. And  those where always decenty priced.  So I'm not really bitter for the money that I lost on the dayz standalone. But it's a shame for those who bought it for the survival aspect of the game.

[DannyDog 532]

29 minutes ago, Henk Grunn said:

@Tigermonk

Just a correction. It's not the way I described it. I explicitly quoted what was published by the developer on the Dayz store page, on steam. I merely  gave one little example, out of the many,  on how this could be achieved. 

The example was a  method to  create an incentive for the player to  actually have to survive something. To have PVP. To have a quest for the player, to have fear and anxiety,  And to have that emergent gameplay ( as stated on the product page) To implement an idea like this, you won't need months. But it's all about priorities. That's also the reason why out of 3,5 million buyers, there are only 2300 (on average daily) playing. The priorities.

If it is really up to the community to create game play, it should have been stated on the storepage. At the moment, the description on the DayZ storepage, written by the DayZ publisher, is misrepresenting the game. Player movement will not change this. Microphones in villages will not change this either. Normally, especially when reaching beta, you should see the direction of the gameplay during the development of a game, and the several builds and the progression of it. I really have no hopes that that magic 1.0 release, that some talk about, will ever arrive.

I always had a lot of fun with games from Bohemia. And  those where always decenty priced.  So I'm not really bitter for the money that I lost on the dayz standalone. But it's a shame for those who bought it for the survival aspect of the game.

I'm not sure if you played back then like .20-.50 but the devs were doing just that. Adding in lots of gameplay content and fun stuff that you want. But basically the opposite of what you stated happened. Players and the community got sick of the game's buggyness on the technical level (like no dynamic shadows, poor vaulting, unresponsive inventory/hotbar, animation bugs, poor fps) and wanted the devs to fix those issues rather than to continue adding in content. "STOP ADDING HATS AND FIX THE GAME".

Now we're basically on the biggest update to the game (like those other major updates don't come close) that will address/fix major issues so expect to see development start ramping up as features held back start getting added in.

Edited November 9, 2017 by DannyDog

[Dancing.Russian.Man 1631]

But the loot works very much like the mod already though. Valuable medical loot only spawns in few specific medical buildings. (your example) And it's not like the mod had only a few "main hospitals," there were many but loot would reliably respawn as you went in and out of the area, instead of how DayZ SA has a global threshold for items across the entire world.

And how about base building and everything that goes along with it (the electrical system for example, which the loudspeakers demonstrated)? That'll definitely give people something to do even if we don't know all the details about it yet, it was also the "end game" of the mod even if there wasn't much beyond tents, catwire, sandbags and tank traps. Not to mention the plans for possibly contaminated areas that you need special gear for (hazmat suit, which we've seen) to enter safely.

Yeah, we're going through a content drought even according to the devs, but that's because all of the assets that have been finished ages ago are on hold until 0.63 arrives, so they can be implemented on the new tech instead of doing the same work twice-over (like they have to do with already existing weapons).

Edited November 9, 2017 by Dancing.Russian.Man
specificity

[Henk Grunn 16]

2 hours ago, Dancing.Russian.Man said:

But the loot works very much like the mod already though. Valuable medical loot only spawns in few specific medical buildings. (your example) And it's not like the mod had only a few "main hospitals," there were many but loot would reliably respawn as you went in and out of the area, instead of how DayZ SA has a global threshold for items across the entire world.

And how about base building and everything that goes along with it (the electrical system for example, which the loudspeakers demonstrated)? That'll definitely give people something to do even if we don't know all the details about it yet, it was also the "end game" of the mod even if there wasn't much beyond tents, catwire, sandbags and tank traps. Not to mention the plans for possibly contaminated areas that you need special gear for (hazmat suit, which we've seen) to enter safely.

Yeah, we're going through a content drought even according to the devs, but that's because all of the assets that have been finished ages ago are on hold until 0.63 arrives, so they can be implemented on the new tech instead of doing the same work twice-over (like they have to do with already existing weapons).

That´s not really meant with the loot. The current situation is that a player can get everything, from everywhere.  Because of this, the chance of meeting another player )either combat or friendly' is very small.

In my example, a NEEDED commodity would only spawn at about 3 or 4 locations. So a commodity that every player, survivor, killer, hermit, needed at a certain point would draw them to that place.

In other words. Lone survivors had a task. They had to travel to that location. They had to scout the area. calculating the risks. that is exciting. adrenaline. On the other side, you have the people looking for pvp. Perhaps killers, or those looking to holdup people, that would scout that area for a target.  In this scenario, all groups profit.

And this is just one example to create gameplay. Something to do. It should not be forced. But i mean, Zed infection and anti/biotics where already in the mod. And it makes sense. I really loved how The dayz2017 mod did that. 

True, basebuilding would adds something to. But i would like to see more stuff, like the above, to give players certain reason to do or go somewhere and that will promote player interaction.

[Gobbokirk 546]

5 minutes ago, Henk Grunn said:

That´s not really meant with the loot. The current situation is that a player can get everything, from everywhere.  Because of this, the chance of meeting another player )either combat or friendly' is very small.

In my example, a NEEDED commodity would only spawn at about 3 or 4 locations. So a commodity that every player, survivor, killer, hermit, needed at a certain point would draw them to that place.

In other words. Lone survivors had a task. They had to travel to that location. They had to scout the area. calculating the risks. that is exciting. adrenaline. On the other side, you have the people looking for pvp. Perhaps killers, or those looking to holdup people, that would scout that area for a target.  In this scenario, all groups profit.

And this is just one example to create gameplay. Something to do. It should not be forced. But i mean, Zed infection and anti/biotics where already in the mod. And it makes sense. I really loved how The dayz2017 mod did that. 

True, basebuilding would adds something to. But i would like to see more stuff, like the above, to give players certain reason to do or go somewhere and that will promote player interaction.

More transport as in planes/helis and as you said building materials combined with more players on the server, should add a lot of that needed tension.

Playing lone wolf now and you're pretty much safe once you find a quiet corner, 80-100 players on the server and the odds of someone stumbling across you fishing is increasing quickly.
It's a tough thing to balance though, can't bottleneck everyone into too few spots either, so topics like these are good.

[Trnc84 50]

The reason microphones and loudhorns will be added IS to increase player interaction.

But besides this the game is not nearly where it should be, so you cannot judge the game in it's current state. You say it's easy to survive now but what about when the game is complete do you think this still applies?

What .63 will bring is a solid foundation for the game mechanics, adressing bugs that have been haunting the game since it's early days.

Also IMO it's a great move by the devs to build this game with modders in mind, seeing that everyone has their own opinion on how survival games should be. They give the modders the tools to make it whatever they want it to be, this will hopefully please the needs of all the types of survival game players out there.

As the devs have mentioned before .63 will not be the patch that will fix everything, see it as the foundation upon which a great game can be built.

 

[pilgrim* 3514]

On 11/9/2017 at 11:48 AM, Henk Grunn said:

 Emergent gameplay ..  not for the solo player!

Maybe you have to be a solo player with a mind of your own ?

For a solo player nothing else happens except emergent gameplay.

xxp

 

Edited November 10, 2017 by pilgrim*
~ it's not really a game for the "average" EA player

[pilgrim* 3514]

5 minutes ago, pilgrim* said:

For a solo player nothing else happens except emergent gameplay.

ps - I'm not really a fan of Disney Star Wars either, but i don't give half a stuffed blowhole about what a dozen-million people think about THAT or about EA games - Those "average" millions disagree with me for just ONE simple reason - because I am interestingly SMART and they are WRONG.

They are average and boringly WRONG. It's not my problem, it's theirs. I let them go their own way.

Science tells us that the most COMMON buyer of online games is the "AVERAGE" - That's the definition of Average -  It is NOT an insult, it is just REALLY boring.
So who passed the law that everything and everyone has to be as average as possible?  You? - How come you aren't having fun playing an "average" EA game, that's what you want.  .. OK, and the secret is - Average EA games already Exist right now!

xxp - - Make your own day.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

1 hour ago, pilgrim* said:

Science tells us that the most COMMON buyer of online games is the "AVERAGE" - That's the definition of Average -  It is NOT an insult, it is just REALLY boring.

I.... I think I love you.

There, I said it!

Remember President GWB? He was the perfect example of "lowest common denominator".

People generally have TERRIBLE taste for all kinds of media/art. Games are a perfect example of this.

Did somebody say gameplay?

 

[Henk Grunn 16]

16 hours ago, pilgrim* said:

Maybe you have to be a solo player with a mind of your own ?

For a solo player nothing else happens except emergent gameplay.

xxp

 

I need to be triggered to do or go somewhere. This is so called survival, yes?

If i have a backpack full of food, I don't need to hunt or fish.  (unless i want that leather clothing)

If i have a handgun and a sniper with a scope plus the ammo, i have no reason to go to tisy or a militairy base or compount. He btw, militairy roadblocks are everywhere. I can get it from anywhere.

If i don't get hurt, i don't have to take care of first aid stuff. Why would I?

Yeah let's go gardening, while I'm so stufffed, that when I eat more, I'll start puking.

I don't really get what you mean by a solo player with a mind of it's own. Currently this game feels like Pac-man with only the maze, and some pac-dots. In the case of dayz, the pac-dots give you no points, and the ghosts are not hurting you. So where is the incentive to avoid them, or to eat the pac-dots? Yes, it needs a player with a mind of it's own to explore the maze. Let's have fun with exploring that maze. Only a tiny amount of people obesessed with a maze could play that for hundreds of hours.  The rest will quit after a few minutes, because there is no point in playing. If there is nothing to survive from, there is no point playing this game.

Edited November 11, 2017 by Henk Grunn
corrected a word

[pilgrim* 3514]

6 minutes ago, Henk Grunn said:

If i have a backpack full of food, I don't need to hunt or fish. 

If you have a backpack full of food and you don't hunt or fish it will "emerge" that your backpack has become empty and has no more food in it. 

Are you complaining that you want 1 can of beans to keep you alive for only 5 minutes before you start starving?
Are you complaining that ammo should be a lot rarer - like you must search for 2 or 5  hours to find only max TWO rounds instead of a box, and one of the two rounds is "damaged"?
Is that it?

Or do you want to go on the STANDARD programmed quest where you know that this house in this town has a Level 8 AI military monster that takes Three headshots with a level 7 gun to kill, then you win the level 8 gun and 200 rounds of ammo, and you Level Up so you can't do that again, and have to go to the radio tower and fight the Level 10 zombie team?  Isn't that a bit  ... "old style"?  .. Do you want difficulty or predictability?

hey - you know you can always play Team Fortress

 

[Sqeezorz 839]

what you are saying is true.

But it is also the fault of the players themselves. Someone who has spent 1000+ ingame hours has his own skill level. for such a game is easy, and then boring. If someone is new to the game, and really has no idea, DayZ is a tough fight to start with.

(it's like the biohaze vid ... the guy is just a pro in the game, it's not a challenge anymore).

I myself set myself tasks that I want to fulfill in the game, and then do exactly the same. The last one was looking for wolves with bows and arrows, and fighting in the open field (no buildings). succeeded, but not the first time, when you hear the howling and a house is in sight, in this situation, not in the house to go (and you are well equipped) is not easy ^ ^.

[Henk Grunn 16]

1 hour ago, pilgrim* said:

If you have a backpack full of food and you don't hunt or fish it will "emerge" that your backpack has become empty and has no more food in it. 

Are you complaining that you want 1 can of beans to keep you alive for only 5 minutes before you start starving?
Are you complaining that ammo should be a lot rarer - like you must search for 2 or 5  hours to find only max TWO rounds instead of a box, and one of the two rounds is "damaged"?
Is that it?

 

No what I am complaining about it is that once you have the basic gear, and food and water. It takes no effort at all, then just more or less walking around, to keep that level. So there is no survival element in it. Nothing to worry about.

If you hardly find pvp, you don't need extra ammo. 1 box is enough. If you don't need to hunt. You don't need extra ammo. because you find food everywhere by just walking around.

And about the loot dristribution. Yes, I would like to see commodities, that needs replenishment, only to be found at certain limited locations. That is what will promote player interaction on this huge map. And perhaps then you need to find more ammo, because you actually need to use it. Not only that. It will give you an incentive to visit that 2 or 3 specific locations to get that commodity that you actually need. Like I mentioned before. Currently you get get everything from everywhere. That is why players hardly meet.  (except for perhaps some players that specificly go to tisy or NWAF.) If you have to go to specific locations for certain needed commodities, then you have a reason to navigate your way to that location, and player interaction will be more frequent.

Edited November 11, 2017 by Henk Grunn
spelling plus extra info

[Mantasisg 172]

The design and vision is wothless, I'm afraid. The gameplay should be getting better and better. But it has mostly been the opposite with each update, especialy since late 2015. Also seems like 10-15 people are really working on this game. 

First of all - thanks Bohemia Interactive for great care. I guess Dean Hall quit not without the reason either. I smell corruption. 

Second thanks for removing life from the coasts, as it was the main areas for basic interactions, as in inlands it is just so much more difficult and less likely to happen. Low max player count doesn't help either. How much it should have been ? 150 ? Coasts were the areas where things was starting to evolve, without coasts it is just a big nonsense. At coast you would be getting your share of interactions, and a bit of chaos, and at the inlands it would have been more calm, but more unpredictable. Now everywhere it is almost the same.

Third - thanks for making it not only running simulator, by not introducing a simple stupid bike, or bicycle, but also for making it looting simulator because loot economy works just so incredibly well.

And the worst part is that the community, which once been pretty damn awesome, has been lost. Creative community is huge part for such uncontrolled game to be fun. Because only players actions makes it good, if players can't work out anything else what to do besides loot all the time and then KOS, then it quickly gets pretty bad. And the game doesn't help - it tells to you - keep running my friend, lots of buildings are meant to be visited today in various towns, so forget about actually playing, because finding gear is an actual game now. 




 

[libertine 351]

And for those who don't have hardly any interest in player interaction, THANK YOU for removing life from the coast.  I agree with the point about looting becoming the gameplay, but .63 is going to re-work so much its the wrong time to worry about this stuff.

Edited November 13, 2017 by libertine

[O_HellFire 33]

7 hours ago, Mantasisg said:

The design and vision is wothless, I'm afraid. The gameplay should be getting better and better. But it has mostly been the opposite with each update, especialy since late 2015. Also seems like 10-15 people are really working on this game. 

First of all - thanks Bohemia Interactive for great care. I guess Dean Hall quit not without the reason either. I smell corruption. 

Second thanks for removing life from the coasts, as it was the main areas for basic interactions, as in inlands it is just so much more difficult and less likely to happen. Low max player count doesn't help either. How much it should have been ? 150 ? Coasts were the areas where things was starting to evolve, without coasts it is just a big nonsense. At coast you would be getting your share of interactions, and a bit of chaos, and at the inlands it would have been more calm, but more unpredictable. Now everywhere it is almost the same.

Third - thanks for making it not only running simulator, by not introducing a simple stupid bike, or bicycle, but also for making it looting simulator because loot economy works just so incredibly well.

And the worst part is that the community, which once been pretty damn awesome, has been lost. Creative community is huge part for such uncontrolled game to be fun. Because only players actions makes it good, if players can't work out anything else what to do besides loot all the time and then KOS, then it quickly gets pretty bad. And the game doesn't help - it tells to you - keep running my friend, lots of buildings are meant to be visited today in various towns, so forget about actually playing, because finding gear is an actual game now. 




 

Dude.. this just reeks of "I want casual easy game play on the coast" and i wont bother mentioning the obvious reasons the devs are working on the things they are right now.. I'm certain you've heard them already.

But if you want meaningful interactions then find a server and join their TS or Discord.. if you can control your whinging you might just strike up a friendship with other regulars (I've met many people I'd call friends IRL, just by doing this, I even did this with the regulars here on the forums, its not that hard). Other people give you camaraderie, laughs, and a general purpose for playing.. fun times!!!... no one is going to say no to an extra set of eyes in the group as long as you fit in, it just takes a little trust building.

I usually look for a zoned map with pvp and no kos areas.. it means the player base is interested in more than just shooting peeps, but don't let that fool you into thinking a lot of them don't like a gunfight though.

Things are quiet at the moment.. many are waiting for .63, its been the norm between patches especially the drawn out ones and I'm doing the same, played a little epoch/overwatch while catching up on things IRL, but its become a little dull. More content doesn't guarantee any better game play... it's the people you're playing with that provide it from my experience. 

[Mantasisg 172]

Maybe true, but I prefered to meet random people in the coast. Maybe naturaly one day I will evolve into your level, and will meet some people regularly with a help of mentioned applications and forums. But thats a bit deeper level. As for being easy/hard in terms of loot economy. More loot makes it harder IMO, because naturaly more players gets armed.

And these things has nothing to do with engines and features.. It just could be.

 

 

 

 

[noreaster 41]

Alpha is a stage in game development in which core mechanics and features are still being dreamed, developed and implemented. Beta is a stage in game development which most of those features have been realized and fine tuning, polishing and optimization begin.

 

We are in Alpha. This thread and any like it are simply absurd and could only be derived from someone who doesn't understand the concept of game development. The game is not meant at this stage to be a fulling polished experienced. It is a chance for you as the player to try the game, give suggestions, help with bugs etc... The game in no way is complete or polished or meant to be balanced.

 

If you follow along development and what is planned for the game you would know that the scope of this project has changed and expanded dramatically with the end goal of easily being the most comprehensive, realistic and potentially hard-core survive game ever made. Which is what makes this pre-beta post complaining specifically about content so silly.

[BeefBacon 1185]

9 minutes ago, noreaster said:

Alpha is a stage in game development in which core mechanics and features are still being dreamed, developed and implemented. Beta is a stage in game development which most of those features have been realized and fine tuning, polishing and optimization begin.

 

We are in Alpha. This thread and any like it are simply absurd and could only be derived from someone who doesn't understand the concept of game development. The game is not meant at this stage to be a fulling polished experienced. It is a chance for you as the player to try the game, give suggestions, help with bugs etc... The game in no way is complete or polished or meant to be balanced.

 

If you follow along development and what is planned for the game you would know that the scope of this project has changed and expanded dramatically with the end goal of easily being the most comprehensive, realistic and potentially hard-core survive game ever made. Which is what makes this pre-beta post complaining specifically about content so silly.

DayZ's alpha isn't really an alpha by that definition, though. I prefer to think that DayZ is currently in a sort of pre-alpha, and that it's about to move into what would traditionally be described as an alpha where the devs start adding actual gameplay elements. Really that's just semantics, though. You're not wrong. Judging the development, and development decisions is one thing, but DayZ simply cannot be judged as a finished game yet because it's nowhere near that state.