Experimental Update 1.12 (Changelog)

[Derleth 1352]

As for melee, the "consistency" fix is something you guys need to look at. A splitting axe or pickaxe hit to the face should end a zombie no matter what. Making the damage output less random is alright - but if so then precision should be rewarded - make headshots in melee count as headshots!

[TheYetiBum 790]

I'll start with the negatives

• Making rifle rounds one tap unarmoured targets to the chest is a bad idea, just removes player options to run with higher stamina & no armour. Will just promote more freshie killing lets be real.
• Staggering in any PvP based game is also a bad Idea, especially in a game where you can get one tapped anyway. A player who starts the fight already has a huge advantage & further punishing the victim by making it impossible to attempt to return fire is a terrible shooter mechanic. Again removing depth & forcing player decisions.
• The infected now take way too much melee damage, there is no world where a splitting axe should have to hit an Infected 4 or more time to kill it. I understand wanting to promote stealth kills but making it the only viable option isn't adding depth its taking it away. 

Positive time

• Being able to suppressed head shot Infected with up to a .45 calibre pistol without causing aggro from other nearby Infected is a brilliant addition, it adds depth & increases player options. Plus was a staple of the early Mods.
• Added depth to vehicles is also excellent (even though networking issue still haven't been solved so most players still don't use vehicles as there often death sentences)
• Landmines disarming is a welcome addition, bravo
• Infected not attacking unconscious players is a welcome addition & will hopefully promote more player interaction during combat
• reduction of chance for Infected scream to aggro other infected is welcome (anything to not have to hear that sound file lol)

In conclusion, great work by the dev team here, I do not agree with the majority of the weapon rebalancing or tankier infected. Never a fan of restricting player choices & heavily funnelling gameplay loops to force a perceived more difficult experience when in reality its just adding extra layers of frustration. Changing  game Metas on a regular basis does not make for a more enriching experience, nobody like having goal posts moved on them mid match.

I think the game needs more events & reasons to frequently traverse the map to increase player interaction instead of forcing players to simply have to shoot more to deal with Infected or spend 30mins trying to stealth kill zombies using janky mocap created nearly a decade ago is less enriching. 

Just my two cents & as always even the stuff I don't like took a human being many hours to create, I appreciate the hardwork that's been put into these additions, changes & fixes.

[William Sternritter 441]

21 hours ago, Derleth said:

After giving the patch 2-3 hours I can say that the changes to infected are very interesting. They are definitely more alert, running around houses opening doors will attract any zeds outside. And the fact they don't stagger as easily from melee attacks means they will get more hits through on you, and many of those hits result in bleeds, so I've been spending 2 out of 3 hours with the world in black & white...

Indeed, DayZ has become quite the art experience 😄 but melee weapons seem to be quite week as others have pointed out. Despite the changelog saying that they were buffed ... but maybe, that is infected resilience. Clarification on that would be welcome. 

[Derleth 1352]

32 minutes ago, William Sternritter said:

Indeed, DayZ has become quite the art experience 😄 but melee weapons seem to be quite week as others have pointed out. Despite the changelog saying that they were buffed ... but maybe, that is infected resilience. Clarification on that would be welcome. 

Seems the numbers were muddled before release, I can't believe splitting axes, pickaxes and similar heavy melee weapons are supposed to be this weak. It is downright silly and frustrating - and an unnecessary change. Zeds don't need to be tanks - there needs to be more of them and they need to be more relentless, beating down doors, climbing on top of cars, haybales, through windows etc. That would make them more scary - giving them fake armour doesn't.

[-Gews- 7443]

2 hours ago, Derleth said:

Edit: A bullet rebalance mod is pretty easy to make iirc (there have been a few already and I made one myself to make .22 headshots instakill zombies) - if I someone was to supply me with the proper values I'm pretty sure I could do it myself. If not I'd find out what I need to...

I played on Namalsk with servers using that mod or one like it, much improves the game and the usefulness of those .22 weapons. I was annoyed to see this dev response to a ticket about that on the Feedback Tracker:

"The damage for the .22 rounds works as intended and has been set up the way it is right now by a design decision. The .22 round is not supposed to kill a zombie in single shot to head."

[Buakaw 274]

2 hours ago, Derleth said:

I'd use that mod. I don't give a bloody toss about "pvp balance", I want ballistics to be realistic. If that means there is no discernable in-game difference between how many 5.45, 5.56 or 7.62x39 you need to get a kill is not something that should matter one wee bit. This is not fecking call of doody, it's DayZ - it's supposed to be gritty and authentic. Not cartoony bloody fortnite level pewpew.

Edit: A bullet rebalance mod is pretty easy to make iirc (there have been a few already and I made one myself to make .22 headshots instakill zombies) - if I someone was to supply me with the proper values I'm pretty sure I could do it myself. If not I'd find out what I need to...

I think both are important. I really liked the 0.54 damage, everything was deadly, including pistols, axes that kill anything in 2 swings and fists that could knock you out.

Anyway, it should be realistic, but not be frustrating and also make sense.

Having assault rifles consistently onetap kind of renders sniper rifles useless, unless the damage drop off will be significant or they will be insanely inaccurate. It also seems straight up overpowered.

BTW; does anyone know what sort of damage reduction gets applied to limbs?

 

Edited April 2, 2021 by Buakaw

[Derleth 1352]

2 minutes ago, -Gews- said:

I played on Namalsk with servers using that mod or one like it, much improves the game and the usefulness of those .22 weapons. I was annoyed to see this dev response to a ticket about that on the Feedback Tracker:

"The damage for the .22 rounds works as intended and has been set up the way it is right now by a design decision. The .22 round is not supposed to kill a zombie in single shot to head."

Aye, that response is what triggered me to make the mod haha. I hate bullet sponge zombies, always have. In my opinion precision should be rewarded. Hell, give zeds the brain vital, making less than half their heads a one-pop zone - would make it even more satisfying to actually score a hit like that.

[TheYetiBum 790]

On 4/1/2021 at 8:32 PM, Derleth said:

Infected aren't meant to be a major challenge 1 vs 1, they are deranged humans, not Stalker mutants. Slight improvements on their targeting, movement and detection is exactly what is needed. Now they just need to have more of them, still too few on vanilla servers. Now, I believe them bashing down doors is still on the table. They already do climb through windows when the navmesh allows them to do so, which is not often but when they do it will take you by surprise. One thing that needs to be fixed is how easy it is to climb on top of a medium high obstacle and be entirely safe. They can jump over 2,5 meter high fences with barbed wire, but cant climb after me on top of an Olga wreck? That is a major issue.

Exactly all of the above!

Zeds didn't need to be made tankier, just needed improved animations, ability to break down doors (hopefully still being worked on) & the ability to climb through windows & onto objects players can too. the whole stealth kill mechanic is cool but lets be real, you spend one second stood up after a stealth kill & every zombie within 50m in your line of sight aggro's making it a cool but pointless pursuit as a player gameplay option. I feel they just wanted to promote player PvP & reduce player vs player stealth by making players stand out more having longer drawn out fights with Zeds or forcing players to always carry a suppressed pistol to deal with infected, further increasing the chance of player interaction. It all just seems very forced, I'm never a fan of removing player gameplay options for any reason.

Totally in agreement with you, we need more optimisation, which would lead to more having more infected. Not eve sure about the whole doors opening aggroing Infected tbh as it falls into the same category of forced gameplay loop. Player opens door, agrros infected causing infected to scream, player has to deal with infected, opposing player hears this interaction they previously wouldn't hear, PvP ensues. I love PvP but some players just want to stealth it & avoid interaction. So the difficulty curve for passive players has risen exponentially but for the PvP focused its just got even easier.

[Derleth 1352]

6 minutes ago, Buakaw said:

BTW; does anyone know what sort of damage reduction gets applied to limbs?

I haven't actually looked at players, but on zombies the damage transfer coefficent from arms and legs is 1/3 iirc. I'm pretty sure excess damage (after the limb is at 0) is not transferred, so you can't kill someone by repeatedly shooting them in the same foot. At zero health in legs/feet zeds go crawling, and after that you need to get a body or headshot to terminate them.

Zeds are notoriously uncooperative when testing, I'd like to check if knocking out their arms makes them unable to strike in melee. I doubt it, but it would be fun!

[-Gews- 7443]

9 minutes ago, Derleth said:

Aye, that response is what triggered me to make the mod haha. I hate bullet sponge zombies, always have. In my opinion precision should be rewarded. Hell, give zeds the brain vital, making less than half their heads a one-pop zone - would make it even more satisfying to actually score a hit like that.

If 380 and 9mm also took two shots it would at least be consistent, but I fail to see the gameplay or balance benefit from .22 pistol taking two shots, meanwhile aggroing the zombie after the first hit and attracting yet more zombies, while a suppressed 9mm/380/45 takes them cleanly in one shot. The .22 pistol is crap for PVP, it should at least be a useful tool for sneaky zombie clearing. What is the thought process for deciding it should take two? Improves gameplay how? Besides unrealism and inconsistency (kill player in one brain shot, a much weaker zombie... no way). But from that response, talking to a wall.
 

14 minutes ago, Buakaw said:

BTW; does anyone know what sort of damage reduction gets applied to limbs?

It was 0.33x for arms and legs, and 0.1x for foot and hands last I checked.

Edited April 2, 2021 by -Gews-

[Derleth 1352]

8 minutes ago, TheYetiBum said:

Totally in agreement with you, we need more optimisation, which would lead to more having more infected. Not eve sure about the whole doors opening aggroing Infected tbh as it falls into the same category of forced gameplay loop. Player opens door, agrros infected causing infected to scream, player has to deal with infected, opposing player hears this interaction they previously wouldn't hear, PvP ensues. I love PvP but some players just want to stealth it & avoid interaction. So the difficulty curve for passive players has risen exponentially but for the PvP focused its just got even easier.

Or give us the option to open doors slooowly to make less noise. For example hold F for 2-3 seconds and the door opens softly instead without alerting zeds. Lower sound too for other players to hear.

Lets be real - if I knew the world was full of brain-munching zombies and homicidal survivors I would make an effort to minimise the amount of noise I'd make when searching a house. I would NOT go stomping around like a damn elefant slamming doors...

Really goes for any action that creates noise.

Edited April 2, 2021 by Derleth

[Derleth 1352]

8 minutes ago, -Gews- said:

If 380 and 9mm also took two shots it would at least be consistent, but I fail to see the gameplay or balance benefit from .22 pistol taking two shots, meanwhile aggroing the zombie after the first hit and attracting yet more zombies, while a suppressed 9mm/380/45 takes them cleanly in one shot. The .22 pistol is crap for PVP, it should at least be a useful tool for sneaky zombie clearing. What is the thought process for deciding it should take two? Improves gameplay how? Besides unrealism and inconsistency (kill player in one brain shot, a much weaker zombie... no way). But from that response, talking to a wall.

I just checked on my Livonia exp server - .22 does actually oneshot zombies with a clean headshot again! If they're wearing a helmet they'll soak at least one hit, but other than that the MKII has taken a giant leap in utility!

[-Gews- 7443]

1 minute ago, Derleth said:

I just checked on my Livonia exp server - .22 does actually oneshot zombies with a clean headshot again! If they're wearing a helmet they'll soak at least one hit, but other than that the MKII has taken a giant leap in utility!

Nice, I saw it was increased in damage to 20, which would be enough to headshot at window distances on old zombies. But don't know how zombies may have been changed.

[Buakaw 274]

Also please Bohemia fucking fix the absurd aim sway, it's out of hand on stable.

 

[thepoey 193]

7 hours ago, Joe Scrub said:

Melee weapons are really weak now:

 

or are infected just stronger?

[ZBA 66]

I hate that I need to hit zombie few times in head to kill it... The best part of 1.11 zombies was a thing that I walk troght the city and I one hit headshot every zombie and go in my way. Now its bullshit. Especially that zombies are still "not fluid" but rather cluncky.

 

We cannot make zombie hordes because technology is still not here and probably never will be? Lets make them stronger by 500%... jesus christ. I bet that developers almost do not play this game or just play like 1-2 hours per week. 

Edited April 3, 2021 by ZBA

[Buakaw 274]

9 hours ago, TheYetiBum said:

I'll start with the negatives

• Making rifle rounds one tap unarmoured targets to the chest is a bad idea, just removes player options to run with higher stamina & no armour. Will just promote more freshie killing lets be real.
• Staggering in any PvP based game is also a bad Idea, especially in a game where you can get one tapped anyway. A player who starts the fight already has a huge advantage & further punishing the victim by making it impossible to attempt to return fire is a terrible shooter mechanic. Again removing depth & forcing player decisions.
• The infected now take way too much melee damage, there is no world where a splitting axe should have to hit an Infected 4 or more time to kill it. I understand wanting to promote stealth kills but making it the only viable option isn't adding depth its taking it away. 

And these points can't be highlighted enough. A staggering mechanic when getting hit by bullets in a game where whoever spots who first usually wins anyway?

I am slightly worried for this patch

[Joe Scrub 37]

9 hours ago, William Sternritter said:

Indeed, DayZ has become quite the art experience 😄 but melee weapons seem to be quite week as others have pointed out. Despite the changelog saying that they were buffed ... but maybe, that is infected resilience. Clarification on that would be welcome. 

 

9 hours ago, Derleth said:

Seems the numbers were muddled before release, I can't believe splitting axes, pickaxes and similar heavy melee weapons are supposed to be this weak. It is downright silly and frustrating - and an unnecessary change. Zeds don't need to be tanks - there needs to be more of them and they need to be more relentless, beating down doors, climbing on top of cars, haybales, through windows etc. That would make them more scary - giving them fake armour doesn't.

 

5 hours ago, thepoey said:

or are infected just stronger?

Melee weapons have been very heavily nerfed in 1.12
1.11 saw a large increase in damage to many melee tools, making most of them OP compared to 1.10 where they were fairly well balanced. 1.12 has nerfed melee weapon damage down to lower than it was even during 1.10 and now many hits are required to take down a player or infected with any melee weapon, raiding is also much slower with melee.

We will provide comparisons soon on the numbers across 1.10, 1.11 and 1.12 in a ticket and in this thread, along with more example videos of how drastic this change is and how underpowered melee weapons now are in the hope that BI revise these changes, ideally just returning the melee damage values (not shock) back to what they were in 1.10 as they were pretty decent.
Punching has been buffed pretty heavily as well in 1.12 and is now overpowered and should be put back to it's previous setting - video examples to follow.

[William Sternritter 441]

13 hours ago, Derleth said:

Zeds don't need to be tanks - there needs to be more of them and they need to be more relentless, beating down doors, climbing on top of cars, haybales, through windows etc. That would make them more scary - giving them fake armour doesn't.

I'll present a bit of a counter argument here, purely on the topic of hordes and toughness. I would love to see hoards, more in the sense that it would be a permanent presence in areas where it makes sense (i.e. larger cities or hotspots of activity). I still dislike the out of nowhere magic horde that appears just because you fired a round.

However; I do like that they are tougher and I would keep it that way with rather balancing out effectiveness of melee weapons and their durability, effects of environment (how well wind masks your noises and all that). The reason I like that is before 1.12, horde or not, the infected were simply not a threat. Even as a freshie you could just outrun them, basically completely ignore them and I didn't like that at all. Not to mention that they were such pushovers I would kill them just to see if they have any food. Some lore excuse can certainly be made (lower pain threshold or something) so you really need to be precise and methodical. For the first time in DayZ (.62 was my starting point), as a freshie, I finally was afraid of them and I was willing to help another survivor, rather then trying to screw them over. 

I do like that they are more alert, it finally feels that me being stealthy and wearing non-bright clothes will have some effect. Before 1.12 you could walk a few meters away from them and they would still not react to you. Even if they would kick down doors or climb at least to roof of a car, you would still dispatch them. Besides a few rare occasions when you would make a terrible mistake, a lone survivor could manage even a larger group out in the open and that was not right. If there were two or more survivors together, the infected played no role besides target practice. We would basically summon the horde just to have something to shoot at. The only reason shooting at infected would screw you over was that it attracted other survivors who just like you, needed a proper target and a challenge.

I also feel that now the risk and reward is much more balanced. When it is tough for a freshie to take down one infected and then they have a can of food and a backpack and maybe something else as well, you earned that.

 

Now obviously there are still quite a few issues with them. I definitely think that they are causing too much bleeding for a blunt attack. I would expect them knocking the survivors out rather then cutting them. Most glaringly, they are so hyper alert now to you walking two houses away and opening doors, but loud and clear gunfire and explosions do not interest them. Like the second half of the feature was not implemented because sprint capacity was full or whatever 😄 so yes it need tuning and it needs more elements, honestly I feel that rewamping the infected should have been one release just by itself so that it would really be a comprehensive update of the world. But overall I do welcome this direction, I want to be afraid of both the infected and the survivors. 

Edited April 3, 2021 by William Sternritter

[X1S0ld13R1X 7]

I'm not too fan of some changes with zombies, when your blood is flashing, you can cross cities full of zombies without consequences, even if a horde come to you, you can fall unconscious as many times as necessary because they wont touch you. Before you had to be really carefull with that and it was very exciting.

Now a horde can't touch you if you are just jogging, they don't touch you neither if you are running out of heal and running, they have to stop to hit you now.

I made here video testing different movements of the characters and how zombies react to it:
 

 

Edited April 3, 2021 by X1S0ld13R1X

[Tonyeh 444]

16 hours ago, TheYetiBum said:

I'll start with the negatives

• Making rifle rounds one tap unarmoured targets to the chest is a bad idea, just removes player options to run with higher stamina & no armour. Will just promote more freshie killing lets be real.
• Staggering in any PvP based game is also a bad Idea, especially in a game where you can get one tapped anyway. A player who starts the fight already has a huge advantage & further punishing the victim by making it impossible to attempt to return fire is a terrible shooter mechanic. Again removing depth & forcing player decisions.
• The infected now take way too much melee damage, there is no world where a splitting axe should have to hit an Infected 4 or more time to kill it. I understand wanting to promote stealth kills but making it the only viable option isn't adding depth its taking it away. 

Positive time

• Being able to suppressed head shot Infected with up to a .45 calibre pistol without causing aggro from other nearby Infected is a brilliant addition, it adds depth & increases player options. Plus was a staple of the early Mods.
• Added depth to vehicles is also excellent (even though networking issue still haven't been solved so most players still don't use vehicles as there often death sentences)
• Landmines disarming is a welcome addition, bravo
• Infected not attacking unconscious players is a welcome addition & will hopefully promote more player interaction during combat
• reduction of chance for Infected scream to aggro other infected is welcome (anything to not have to hear that sound file lol)

 

I don't think anyone should be running away after taking a rifle round and I say that as someone who doesn't wear any armour in the game, apart from a helmet. Maybe one shotting every single time might be a bit much though.

Agree that the infected now seem to be ridiculously resilient. There goes my usual method of dealing with them, i.e. an axe to the face when they charged me. Not too sure how I feel about that at the mo. But in Joe Scrub's vid above it looks like a bleedin farce.

Suppressed head shots on the infected without alerting every other one in 500 yards is a great addition and about time too.

 

[Derleth 1352]

3 hours ago, X1S0ld13R1X said:

I'm not too fan of some changes with zombies, when your blood is flashing, you can cross cities full of zombies without consequences, even if a horde come to you, you can fall unconscious as many times as necessary because they wont touch you. Before you had to be really carefull with that and it was very exciting.

Now a horde can't touch you if you are just jogging, they don't touch you neither if you are running out of heal and running, they have to stop to hit you now.

I made here video testing different movements of the characters and how zombies react to it:
 

 

The release of aggro at uncon is truly poorly implemented. This MUST be tweaked so this happens only if there are other (conscious) players nearby that the infected are alerted to. Until such a system is ready, I'd prefer if this change is reverted. If you are alone and bugger up so you get cornered and beaten uncon by zeds - death should follow. If there's another player on their shit list though - KILL HIM TOOO!!! and off they go, giving you a chance to crawl off and patch yourself up.

Edited April 3, 2021 by Derleth

[Just Caused 423]

21 minutes ago, Derleth said:

The release of aggro at uncon is truly poorly implemented. This MUST be tweaked so this happens only if there are other (conscious) players nearby that the infected are alerted to. Until such a system is ready, I'd prefer if this change is reverted. If you are alone and bugger up so you get cornered and beaten uncon by zeds - death should follow. If there's another player on their shit list though - KILL HIM TOOO!!! and off they go, giving you a chance to crawl off and patch yourself up.

I can't believe crap like that is still present in game. AI pathfinding even on low ping servers is so bad, suprised people don't call them out on this anymore.

[Fernando de Lucca 1]

The problem is that PVP Players do not want any difficulty and forget that Dayz is a survival game in a post-apocalyptic world! If you were afraid of the zombies, be stealthy. Zombies are not normal people, which is fatal for humans may not be fatal for zombies!
PVP Players cannot forget that not everyone plays PVP. There is a large community of PVE Players. If you don't like the difficulty of surviving, maybe Dayz is not a good game for you!

To solve this problem, Bohemia could put a zombie option for dummies or hardcore survivors!

[Derleth 1352]

15 minutes ago, Fernando de Lucca said:

The problem is that PVP Players do not want any difficulty and forget that Dayz is a survival game in a post-apocalyptic world! If you were afraid of the zombies, be stealthy. Zombies are not normal people, which is fatal for humans may not be fatal for zombies!
PVP Players cannot forget that not everyone plays PVP. There is a large community of PVE Players. If you don't like the difficulty of surviving, maybe Dayz is not a good game for you!

To solve this problem, Bohemia could put a zombie option for dummies or hardcore survivors!

I play the game nearly exclusively for its PvE aspects, I defend myself if someone picks a fight but I never actively look for trouble. And for that reason I think it is absolutely crucial that any changes to make zombies more challenging are done right. Uber tanky bullet sponge zombies are incredibly boring, they've been done to death in myriad other games and mods to this game and they always end up being more annoying than challenging or scary.

I'd hate to see DayZ go down that route too. They should work with the zombies' pathing, reacions and numbers. Bashing down doors and climbing through windows, getting on top of obstacles, reacting to light sources. That kinda thing. And more of them. On a dedicated server you can easily have 3 times the regular vanilla number of zombies without the server melting - the reason default numbers are so low is because official servers are multiple sessions on each server machine, and DayZ servers simply can't handle that. So zeds are kept to a silly low level - and still official servers have crap performance. Go figure.