DayZ in 2021

[Kyiara 735]

Hello survivors!

We kicked off the new year with the release of Game Update 1.11. While the update might not be packed with new features and content, it did allow us to focus on our backlog of issues and provided us with enough space to prepare this year’s schedule. As mentioned in our previous DayZ in 2020 article, we are committed to supporting DayZ through 2021 by releasing regular game updates, just like we did in 2020. Support will come in the form of new content, features, balancing, and continual bug fixing. This article will outline part of our focus for this year.

One thing we’ll continue introducing to the game is new firearms. Unlike previous years, we intend to mix things up more by introducing weapons which weren’t present in the legacy version of DayZ. You can already see evidence of this with the brand new SVAL rifle, which we introduced in the last game update.

Another area of focus that’s important for us this year is balancing the damage system. For example, we intend to look at how we can improve melee (mainly against infected), including a more consistent way of landing stealth kills (rewarding players for a stealth approach). We would also like to look into differentiating more individual firearms, as well as increasing the chances of PVP encounters ending in an unconscious state (rather than instant death).

Along with our efforts to improve melee with the infected will be a larger focus on Infected AI reactions to their surroundings. This includes balancing existing noise sources and adding new ones (such as light or doors opening). We’d also like to experiment with some new capabilities for the Infected AI.

To spice up your adventures, we’ve begun looking into introducing a new type of environmental threat to both of our maps.

We intend to improve feedback to players on the state of their character. This could include various states like bleeding, hunger, thirst and more through post-process sounds, effects or particles.

Also being considered is further iteration of the in-game respawn menu.

We want to focus more on seasonal events, mainly by introducing additional events throughout the year, as well as enriching the events themselves (mostly through new in-game assets).

Last, but certainly not least, we will continue to support our creative community (i.e. modders and server owners).

Our plan is to release four more game updates this year. And in an effort to breathe fresh air into the official hive, we’ve also decided to incorporate semi-regular wipes of character and server persistence files (bases, vehicles, etc.). We won’t be doing these wipes with every update, but we do want to make sure there’s an ending (and a new beginning) every 3-4 months. We already started with Game Update 1.11 and we expect to do two more this year. While these wipes will always be synchronized with game updates, the reasons are purely balance-related and not of a technical nature. We remain committed to providing backward compatibility between updates, so none of these wipes will be forced on community-run servers. Rest assured that all wipes will always be announced a few weeks ahead of schedule. During that time, we might spice things up a bit on the official hive, like we did with 1.11 and the increased occurrence of helicopter crash sites. 

In order to achieve all of the above (and more), we're continuing to expand our development team. If you happen to be interested, or know someone who is, check out our website for available positions.

On behalf of the DayZ team,

Adam

 

 

 

[TheYetiBum 790]

This is great news @Kyiara!

Absolutely love the 3-4 month total wipes to give the game a more structured beginning & end cycle for players, Something games like rust do very well & think this would suit official DayZ servers perfectly.

The new environmental threat sounds cool, Radiation, poison gas over high level mil bases maybe? or is snow being implemented? Either way sign me up

Also loving the fact Zombies will receive some TLC, there movement & mocapped attacks are very frustrating, janky & only seem designed to exacerbate gunfights by largely prolonging there attacks with hopping about, running in circles around you or touching there own toes when attacking so you swing over there head. All of which look pretty ridiculous, offer no difficulty other than frustration & lack any kind of satisfying skill arc. So any changes to there behaviour is very welcome. (apologise I hate the Infected with a passion,  my least favourite part of DayZ currently)

All other news is great & as always huge thanks to the Dev & social team for there hard work in 2020  

[William Sternritter 441]

I understand the wipe of persistence, but in a game where the main focus is survival, wipe of characters kinda negates the point. 

[Getsome 34]

Big fan on wiping the official servers on a semi-regular basis. It really spices up the game and generates a lot more enthusiasm, this has always been the case on our modded servers. Definitely a move in the right direction also helps in overall server performance.

 

[TheYetiBum 790]

Just now, William Sternritter said:

I understand the wipe of persistence, but in a game where the main focus is survival, wipe of characters kinda negates the point. 

I partially agree but the main frustration of many players is the lack of tier 4 weaponry as it gets stashed out of existence after the first week of a wipe & by just increasing its spawn numbers just continues to benefit those in large groups with large bases or hidden away stashes. it makes the game pretty dull for most. Having a fixed wipe schedule like most other mmo survival games gives everyone extra reason to come back & play on a regular basis. I am in no way trying to invalidate your opinion though, just a counter proposal is all. Also take into account the vast majority of players prefer to PvP rather than survive which is precisely why private servers are more popular, which wont be wiped & there's always some decent private survival based servers too

[Sveng9 1]

I like the approach, thinking of Dayz having seasons like in some other competitive games out there is pretty nice. I guess having Servers which wipe more rarely would be great for some other players too. 

I wish to know, will you be able to add more features to the Engine? Like Bicycles, more stable cars or thinks you can do in the Car, the dream of offical helis, bow and arrows or do we have to stick with modders helping us there?

I love more threats from the envoirment or Events which threat you. I remember the talks about infected hordes, maybe they can spawn occasionally thats sounds fun and terrifying.

overall the right direction, of course everyone hopes it can happen faster but Im happy about anything new.

[dethsupport 110]

24 minutes ago, William Sternritter said:

I understand the wipe of persistence, but in a game where the main focus is survival, wipe of characters kinda negates the point. 

no point wiping if youre not wiping the characters as well. else everyone will be max pocket slots with two field bags and high cap vest full of high tier rifles. or 1000+ nails and all tools logged off in the area they will rebuild their base in as soon as the wipe is completed.

no one likes to lose their character to things outside their control, and while i dislike the pvpfest that happened prewipe it will most certainly happen again when it doesnt matter if you survive or not, which does give some incentive to practice gunplay for those who are more survival oriented.

infrequent full wipes are a good thing.

[mathieu mauron 12]

Another area of focus that’s important for us this year is balancing the damage system. For example, we intend to look at how we can improve melee (mainly against infected), including a more consistent way of landing stealth kills (rewarding players for a stealth approach). We would also like to look into differentiating more individual firearms, as well as increasing the chances of PVP encounters ending in an unconscious state (rather than instant death).

 

=> a great choice to turn a simulation game into an arcade game

[christyan1990 2]

when the bows, crossbows, spears, hunting traps etc. will return.

[thepoey 193]

Semi-regular wipes sounds like the team has just given up on entirely on balancing base building. 

Kills the incentive to really build or survive more than it already has. Going to be coastal deathmatches non stop now. 

Disappointed there is zero mention regarding vehicle stability and server fixes as well, which is really the big thing that needs to be looked at. I think "infected AI" could probably take a backseat when I can't even change a clip without having to log because I am suddenly Desynced. Not even exaggerating, I have to log/re-log every 10 minutes because of Desync issues. And no mention of the rampant duping issues on console? I'm hoping it is at least on the radar. Unless "semi-regular wipes" is the solution. 😒

Oh well. Very disappointing "road map". Really starting to see why people walk away from this game. 

[guerier06 0]

hello it's normal that I can't spawn a truck with 50 wooden log if you have a solution thank you very much

[Topherjack 4]

You guys have just made our year! Thank you all so much for being so enthusiastic and dedicated to this beautiful game and community! This game is more than a game for a lot of us, it is a lifestyle!

[AvocadoGuy 4]

FIX THE CARS.

We didn't ask for new features. We didn't ask for new weapons. We asked for ways to drive a car without flying past the moon every time a desync occurs. After you fix this, then you can add and rework stuff.

Cars are both a bless and a curse, you can't risk getting in one if the server pop is above medium and getting killed because it starts acting like a blender.

[Peek a BOOM 4]

Three things must be addressed for this game on Xbox.  Desync, car bugs, and duping.  Take these issues seriously and you will have a game that functions as intended.

If you eliminate Duping, you will fix loot balance, base raiding, location lag around large bases and a whole host of other issues.  There is literally no point in building a base even with 10 gates deep when duper’s can cheat and have sea chests full of grenades.  Zero point. 
 

Driving increases your range and efficiency by a huge amount.  But if you are always taking your life into your own hands because a car is going to lag spike you into a road sign or tree, or better yet, when you enter a vehicle you are suddenly going to be come an astronaut headed for Mars, it takes the fun out of it.  Why should I see a car cartwheeling or spazzing out as I drive it and my passenger doesn’t?  Fix this.

 

Desync is the linchpin to all of this.  I believe that duping and driving are both adversely affected by desync.  Can we focus on game stability before we focus on adding superfluous sounds and zombie behaviors?

 

I play DayZ because it’s the best game out there for open world survival.  Either fix these things or make DayZ 2.0 on a modern graphics engine and make it not possible to cheat.  I’d literally pay $100 for dayz 2.0 with modern graphics and a polished playing experience. 

 

[drgullen 593]

@Kyiara

Your report, while appreciated, lacks any information regarding vehicle stability.  The game has come a long way, but one of the major problems that remains and, quite frankly, that you folks have not communicated very well about, are the vehicles.  Are you still working on stabilizing them?  Are there plans to switch them to being client side instead of server side?  Are they already as good as they're ever going to get?

Some idea as to what the plans are with vehicles going forward would be nice to know.

[zrudie 10]

Thanks Adam. But what would help is to know backlog DayZ have in Enfusion development team. So if there is someone commited to solving car-related issues and new solution could be backported to DayZ. I expect cars are important for BI games, so I expect there is work being done or maybe new approach towards cars in respected to new architecture. Or at least someone in Enfusion team is working do DayZ related issues.

[Luckshowsup 5]

We play official servers, and the people duplicating is getting out of hand, not only do they continue to do this, but there are multitudes of community facebook groups for them specifically. They have zero shame and I'm awfully surprised you guys haven't shown any attention to this. I've witnessed bases with hundreds of mines, grenades, and other kits, on official, and have infiltrated some of these groups to get information. It's out of hand and needs to be dealt with before guns, and other things are added..

[osimone 3]

Hello DayZ team,

I really love your game and been around it since 2013. It had its ups and downs and now is probably in the best possible shape ever BUT it still has some major flaws which are very much ruining our gaming experience. I like the idea of improving Zeds AI and adding content etc but we won't be even able to enjoy what you guys working on. Zombies are being rooted in the nearest texture when the server is full, making them totally useless. The lags or desync if I should put it this way is insane. It's literally trying to shoot a teleporting player. Cheaters and Dupers - I have never seen anyone from the team talking about this and IT IS A MAJOR problem. Why this isn't being discussed or any public statement given? I and many others are trying to prove our points on your forums, Twitter and who knows where else and I'm sure it must be so annoying and frustrating to read it on a daily basis but what else are we supposed to do? Unfortunately, I'm not a Dev so I can't join your team and help you even tho I would love to! But if you still mean it and want to work on the game and make it the best possible game ever in its genre (and you are so very close!), then please listen to the community feedback. Or you just trying to keep it alive so you can milk it till the last player leaves for good? I hope not. I will sum it up for you tl;dr - Please somebody comment regarding the following: 1, Server Performance (lags, desync..) 2, Cheaters -  (china mostly), 3, Dupers 4, Cars. Thank you and have a blessed day.

[wildzero 36]

6 hours ago, Kyiara said:

, as well as increasing the chances of PVP encounters ending in an unconscious state (rather than instant death).

Please have a look at the adjusted damage values from the DayZ IntenZ server. They have done just that and set perfectly balanced and lifelike values in my opinion:

[Andy Devo 4]

Make a game that works before adding more stuff to it. Where are your heads developers? Fix the desync first!

Edited March 8, 2021 by Andy Devo

[thepoey 193]

Just thinking about this further, and just doing regular persistence wipes is a short term fix for interactivity, but absolutely horrible for the long term health of the game. 

The biggest incentive for DayZ over any other game is the permadeath nature of it. How long can you survive? Incentivizing the life of your character, beyond just the value of your "loot" needs to be Step One. The Soft Skills system is a step in that direction, but beyond that, your character needs to have value just beyond "loot". It needs to be "Survive and Thrive" not "Loot and Shoot". 

Removing any kind of base building long term permanence really kills any kind of incentive to do anything other than coastal PVP. Why not utilize the flag system more efficiently? Maybe all stashes and bases should have a persistence of 7 days as a default, unless they are tagged with a Flag. This could make hiding stuff a lot harder, but would also incentivize building more. I really hope base building balance gets another look and can become something viable.

[999white999 23]

Wipe the severe every 3 4 mouth im done with this game

[McWendy 675]

Oke so we have no clue how to regulate the central loot economy and/or make a decent degrade or integration of buried/stashed loot. Therefore our sollution is to Just wipe everything every quarter. 

We say its because other games do it, but infact have no time, resources and Will to change it. 

Also we Just keep introducing more fire arms because that takes no effort at all its Just reskins with some values changes here and there. At least we got that mechanic right. But PVP is the road to go because that creates online content and increase in sales.

Furthermore we say stuff to keep you interested but have no actual plan at all. 

Ffs really is this the roadmap? You now actually showed your hand and people can finally move on. Thanks for that.

I can remember a game description asking: How long can you survive the apocalyptic wilderness of DayZ?! Well appearently 3-4 months then they Will kill my character..... Wtf

Also still no bow or other survival mechanics improvements.... 

This is a sad sad day for people who invested in the EA of this game, hoping after 7 years that they Will eventually get that zombie survival game. But no. The dream is dead.

 

 

 

[Befus 4]

So there's no point building a home base or trying to keep your character alive anymore. Great job. Pretty soon this game will just be another battle royale.

[amadieus 313]

Nice roadmap with some interesting things to look out to this year. Not sure why some people expected more from this roadmap as this is exactly the same as last year.

They could have touched upon the desync issues, cars and fan favourite the bow. But they already mentioned that desync and the cars unstability was going to be looked at this year in the 2020 year review. Pretty sure that they also already mentioned that the bow is coming back this year. 

Especially looking forward to the improvements on the infected. Hopefully this also includes better pathfinding as this is one of the more ugly parts of the infected as also ties in with the difficulties in combatting them.

Making weapons more unique is something I look forward to as well. They are all too similar right now. 

I do hope that we see further additions such as notes, books and more crafting possibilities. Also further texture improvements are welcome to assets around the map.

Lastly, I don't play on official servers, but I can imagine that people don't like a wipe that often. Perhaps do it once or twice a year max.