0.63 Developer Live Stream - 14th March 2018

[The Ghost of Hoik 92]

This just your opinion, stop making the assumption that everyone sees things the same way as yourself - to me Dayz is not and has never been Epoch.

You may be right in saying that enhanced melee isn't as essential to the success of dayz as base building, but this is a sand box game trying its hardest to enable the player to do as many things as possible, just because you can't see the value in something does not mean it has no place in the game.

[THEGordonFreeman 664]

13 hours ago, VVarhead said:

Okay, didn't hear that about the HUD, that's good news.

Also I'd like to ask about the draw distance: Why is it so incredibly low? There's so much fog, DayZ didn't always look like this. I guess it's a performance choice, but I never had performance problems with the higher draw distance in 0.60 for example

By the way, I don't want to sound negative. I appreciate all the work done on the game, I was just bothered by the HUD and draw distance.

You really should watch the stream again, both of those aissues were addressed.

RE: HUD.  Yes, you can remove it, in the stream, Baty actually toggles the HUD completely off.  You can't see it at all.

RE: Draw Distance.  Eugene addressed this that at some point, while the performance balancing is happening they will look at how much they can add or allow players to add as well as tune th FOG down, etc.  Your concerns will be addressed during Beta phase.

[OliverPlotTwist 458]

Alrighty, here's my review of the live stream.

 

First the positives:

Stamina - Great, love it. 

Bloody hands/diseases - Immersive, love it.

Ladders/swimming/falling - All look great, love it.

Ambient spawning items -  So much better than the old system, love it.

Interruptible animations - So much smoother, love it.

Weapon animation/sway - Looks good, love it.

Player status icons - Very clean, love it.

(also other things I've forgot to mention) - Love it.

 

Now the negatives:

Melee Combat - Looks clunky as hell, the forced movement while meleeing makes it look almost impossible to hit anything. IMO, you should keep the light, heavy and blocking but allow the player to always have control of movement. 

UI/'Action circle' - Now while I love most of the new UI, the change of the "action circle" from the bottom corner (ie the Gamescom demo) to the center of the screen is a really poor choice in my eyes. It's immersion breaking and just doesn't look good. IMO it should be changed back to how it was presented in the Gamescom demo.

 

Overall:

Loved it. Everything looks to be going in the way I always hoped it would. Keep up the fantastic work devs. In Beta We Trust!

Edited March 15, 2018 by OliverPlotTwist

[THEGordonFreeman 664]

Ahhhh... forget it.  It's not worth the effort.....

Edited March 15, 2018 by THEGordonFreeman
Please Send this post into the digital ether....

[Girth Brooks 570]

Excellent stream and informative. 7k viewers and I'm sure the youtube vid is racking up views. 

Animations look good, probably my fav part of the video.

I'm trying to think without watching the video again but I don't remember them saying much about player count and server performance. I'm very curious about that.

[EO 42]

Really enjoyed last night's Developer stream, it's amazing what has been done with the new player controller system, looks very fluid. I'm excited for what's to come further down the road.

Given everything that has happened during DayZ's long development cycle, it's heartening to see a team still full of dedication and optimism.

Personally, I haven't played DayZ for over 2 years but I'm still an avid follower of the project, I will most definitely be returning when 0.63 hits stable....hell, I might even jump aboard experimental when it drops.  

Best of luck for the future. 

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

1 hour ago, Girth Brooks said:

Excellent stream and informative. 7k viewers and I'm sure the youtube vid is racking up views. 

Animations look good, probably my fav part of the video.

I'm trying to think without watching the video again but I don't remember them saying much about player count and server performance. I'm very curious about that.

There was no specific numbers for player count given only a strong impression that player count and infected count will get boosts when optimizations happen.

[elvisarhs 49]

Hello Survivors,
 
I bet everyone is as excited as I am.  Last night was massive for DayZ and for everybody that cares for the game. It took me quite a while to digest what I've seen last night, but now everything came together as one solid picture.
DayZ is going to be better than I thought.

I will be completely honest here, I was starting to loose hope about the game prior to the renderer update, but after testing it on experimental and seeing how insanely different, and well it worked for such an early implementation, I told my self "Well, they fuckin did it. This is it, no matter how long it takes, they will do it, they love DayZ as much as we do."

What we have seen last night, was nothin short of spectacular. DayZ is at he point, from where the devs are properly working on everything they've ever wanted, because the technology is in their hands.

The only thing I am kinda worried is the Survivor GameZ tease of sorts. My honest opinion is that the Survivor GameZ mode should be only available for competitive/tournament enviroments, so that it won't loose its appeal. I don't like BR games, they loose their tension/suspense/blood boiling moments after several wins. DayZ Survivor GameZ is the Superbowl or the World Cup, etc.

 Survivor GameZ every 3 or 6 months is perfect.

2018 is the year of DayZ!
 

Edited March 15, 2018 by elvisarhs

[cirkular 178]

I liked the whole video - nothing much to comment on that one. And I think both the devs and the community could benefit with some short videos of features progress towards beta and 1.0. I guess it's only lol a matter of putting together the essential and valuable information into several minutes. 

A lot of people don't read the forums, obviously don't read status reports, and didn't have time to see yet alone catch the info about this particular 2+ hours live stream and I'm not sure we're aware of the power the youtube gaming streamers have there. This thing will spread easily.

[gorvi 189]

8 hours ago, robbyj said:

enhanced melee combat is essential

about the only thing which matters in this post

[cirkular 178]

Now that you mention it, my favorite game with melee combat was Mount and Blade ages ago and I miss good melee combat in DayZ. I mean, it is a shooter game but you can run out of ammo, sometimes too easily, sometimes ammo can be really scarce. Since we have all those melee weapons at disposal it should definitely be enhanced from the simple click or hold.

 

[gorvi 189]

Just now, cirkular said:

I mean, it is a shooter game

This was only because of the Real Virtuality limitations.  Dean very much intended for DayZ to have melee and other forms of combat.

 

Its also very important for Arma 4 as the Arma series leaves CQC something to be desired.  There is nothing worse than being left defenseless in a combat situation.

[robbyj 77]

3 hours ago, gorvi said:

about the only thing which matters in this post

if you care about the development and overall success of this game you would hold developers accountable when they make mistakes. assuming you've played dayz mod, you know how insignificant melee combat was. as i showed in my previous post, a steady decline of players can be observed ever since the alpha was released. one of the main reasons for this is developing features grossly out of order when sorted in terms of importance. three years on an animation system (which looks great) before a bike was added to the game? come on. it's just silly. melee combat isn't a selling point of dayz and just never will be. foolish to think otherwise. 

Edited March 15, 2018 by robbyj

[VVarhead 185]

I'd rather see base-building implemented in a way which utilizes existing structures. Being able to reinforce houses or apartements in the big buildings and make them your home.

Epoch-style basebuilding destroys immersion. I don't wanna run around in the wilderness and find ridiculous structures all over Chernarus. It just seems out of place. 

Why would anybody sleep in some makeshift-shacks when there are structures all over Chernarus which you could make easily inhabitable, plus it's probably easier to implement than free base-building.

Edited March 15, 2018 by VVarhead

[gorvi 189]

9 minutes ago, robbyj said:

assuming you've played dayz mod, you know how insignificant melee combat was

 

2 hours ago, gorvi said:

This was only because of the Real Virtuality limitations.  Dean very much intended for DayZ to have melee and other forms of combat.

 

Its also very important for Arma 4 as the Arma series leaves CQC something to be desired.  There is nothing worse than being left defenseless in a combat situation.

 

11 minutes ago, robbyj said:

one of the main reasons for this is developing features grossly out of order when sorted in terms of importance. three years on an animation system (which looks great) before a bike was added to the game? come on. it's just silly. melee combat isn't a selling point of dayz and just never will be. foolish to think otherwise. 

Priorities are set for what major system those other features are dependent upon.  The primary reason behind the animation system was a huge lack of tactile interaction with the gameworld with a legacy feature.  This engine feature will cross the entire facet of DayZ's mechanics such as base building and bikes. 

 

In regards to base building itself, we saw a proof of concept with the introduction of tents.  Programmers do intend on making it a fully supported engine feature, but this takes time and resources which first needed to be allocated to other areas of the engine.  Rushing ahead would have easily meant other critical updates to the engine might have been pushed aside or bases completely reworked if the scope had to be dialed back in favor of performance.

[Sqeezorz 839]

From the point of view of how DayZ is now, melee sounding slightly unimportant, the firearms still dominate the gameplay.

B.Hicks, however, once emphasized: "Think well for what you want to use a round." That sounds to me like the loot will have other numbers in the future. If Vanilla struggles to get weapons or ammunition (imagine the military Infected could kill Instant's neck), melee combat will have a very different (more) value.

Sure, this system is quickly pushed into the background in PvP mods, but Dayz's path will go beyond the original.

[gorvi 189]

17 minutes ago, VVarhead said:

plus it's probably easier to implement than free base-building

Not true at all.  Its going to take a lot of work to make sure barricading will be working as intended and also fit within DayZ's environment.

 

Rest assured, barricading will be more than just locking/boarding up doors and will work in tangent with the persistent player placed objects feature.

[philbur 476]

10 hours ago, Girth Brooks said:

I don't remember them saying much about player count and server performance. I'm very curious about that.

Two excellent questions...as these two are basically the most critical challenges facing this title as it goes forward.

I am afraid that this kind of thing will get shoved under the carpet until all the fluff gets implemented.

(My guess is they wait until .63 hits EXP and the Jam-Packed servers grind to an FPS standstill.)

[gorvi 189]

1 minute ago, philbur said:

I am afraid that this kind of thing will get shoved under the carpet until all the fluff gets implemented.

Its better to try and push the numbers after the engine has stopped going through major iterations and true optimization can begin.

 

At first I imagine we will see the standard 60 player servers for testing experimental.  Devs might try to push servers up to 200 near the mid/end of beta, but trying to guess at this point is a crapshoot for both devs and users.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

If you think the devs could have just "flipped a switch" and added properly functioning bikes you must not understand how the SA needed to be built.

Without a perfect global view of the state of development you cannot in anyway say that you know what's most important to prioritize.

People have incredibly selfish expectations of DayZ alpha and often cannot separate what they want from what the game needs.

Also, before you start saying you are speaking for a silent majority, please take the time to make sure you speak with all parties involved. When you only hear (or listen to) the opinions of like minded people, your views for what you think the public at large actually want become skewed.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

Furthermore, I would like all character running/jogging slowed down even further once vehicles are properly implemented. The more we have to sacrifice to make gains, the more those gains have meaning. If getting to Tisy on foot takes you 3 play sessions over as many days, you will cherish the loot you find there. This will also have the effect of making the map feel bigger again.

The best games reward the difficult paths.

If 2 infected are deadly, you will move slower, and with more stealth. If it took you a week to get a car running, you will guard it with your life.

I find most shooters repetitive and uninspired games. I lose any empathy with the character when I can just respawn with no penalties or build up of my characters gear. Honestly, I hardly consider people who play only shooters gamers. DayZ gives me a reason to carry a gun in a game. DayZ makes me want to keep my character alive as long as possible. You cannot deny the visceral thrill that DayZ provides that no other game can. This is mostly due to the efforts you must make to build up and sustain your character and the more work that involves, the deeper the connection.

[philbur 476]

4 minutes ago, ☣BioHaze☣ said:

Furthermore, I would like all character running/jogging slowed down even further once vehicles are properly implemented. The more we have to sacrifice to make gains, the more those gains have meaning. If getting to Tisy on foot takes you 3 play sessions over as many days, you will cherish the loot you find there. This will also have the effect of making the map feel bigger again.

Yes..But further to this I would suggest they just decrease the Stamina Bar, and have the bar also slowly shorten as you jog. It is an "easier" adjustment that more closely resembles real world physics.

No one walks in Chenarus and the devs seem to accept it as normal to jog all the time...it's not natural and it almost seems like it encourages the player to take less notice of his surroundings. A gameplay mechanic that makes you become LESS-IMMERSED is kind of odd...for a game that is all about immersion.

They seemed very pleased with the way it works in the initial release but I hope as you do that they bring the whole "Stamina" factor closer to reality. In order to "jog" with full pack, battle rifle, ammo, and dressed fully and across broken terrain a fit soldier could cover maybe a kilometer before you were huffing and puffing. That's about 50 pounds on average, not including your weapon...so maybe let's see video footage of Martin and Peter trying that out in the MOCAP studio? ;-P

I would love a return to the "huge" map and this is easily the most effective way to do it.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

"Loaded marches in the United States Army are known as ruck marches and are part of basic recruit training. In order to gain the Expert Infantryman Badge (a further qualification for existing infantry personnel) candidates must complete a ruck march of 19 kilometers (12 mi) within three hours, carrying a rifle and load. The total load (including the rifle) may be up to 31.75 kilograms (70 lb). The march is individual rather than in a squad, so an individual may achieve a better time than the three-hour requirement." - wiki

Sounds to me like most people with 50+ pounds of gear wouldn't be able to sustain much over 4+5mph on foot for any prolonged period of time.

Thereby you would hope a guy in a crafted leather outfit and no backpack holding an SMG should be able to run circles around the guy with the full military kit and full Alice backpack....

[gorvi 189]

1 hour ago, ☣BioHaze☣ said:

I would like all character running/jogging slowed down even further once vehicles are properly implemented

I'm pretty sure this will be the long term goal.  Without reliable transportation, its something we will have to just deal with.

[IMT 3190]

11 hours ago, robbyj said:

if you care about the development and overall success of this game you would hold developers accountable when they make mistakes. assuming you've played dayz mod, you know how insignificant melee combat was. as i showed in my previous post, a steady decline of players can be observed ever since the alpha was released. one of the main reasons for this is developing features grossly out of order when sorted in terms of importance. three years on an animation system (which looks great) before a bike was added to the game? come on. it's just silly. melee combat isn't a selling point of dayz and just never will be. foolish to think otherwise. 

I don't think you quite know how 0.63 will change the game. Sure, DayZ might be not about melee right know but rather about guns. But mark my word, 0.63 will change this. With the new limping animations, getting hurt will be very dangerous and will be a key factor in life or death. Stealth and melee are going to play an huge role in the upcoming patch because the ability to freely and endlessly run away from situations will be over.

A lot of people will not like these changes and will have trouble adapting to them. Sure, it might seem awesome on stream or on video's but I don't think people stood still to think how these changes will affect their gameplay. For example, you get into a firefight with someone and you get hurt. If both guns weren't suppressed, this will attract a lot of infected. Being already hurt and not able to sprint away full speed means you need to think fast because you will get caught up and get killed.

Really, trust me, 0.63 will see an huge change in gameplay, both technical and gameplay wise. If it's for better or worse, that's a personal opinion.