Dayz's Flawed Foundations: Movement and Gunplay

[lakevu 98]

Hello everyone! I have come here to voice my concerns about the state of the game, primarily the current Movement and Gunplay mechanics in the game. 

 What has made me think a lot about this recently is that me and my friends have been trying to create our own server. Not to be considered "Hardcore" but to be more in line with reality than what seems to be the vast majority of the servers available right now. For example; No Unlimited Sprint, Balanced Weapon rarity, More realistic vehicle fuel consumption and things similar to this that would detract from the PVP, call of duty fantasy land that a lot of servers are basing themselves in.

However the more we have worked on the server and the more we have tried to achieve this vision of creating a server to embody what dayz should really feel like I have come to realize that dayz in its current form can no longer be the "hardcore" survival game that it was originally intended to be. Because of the games current foundations, most notably. Its Movement and Gunplay mechanics Dayz cannot accommodate a truly hardcore experience to what it was founded upon.

But What do I mean by this?

Lets start with Movement,

Everything you do IE; Turning, Leaning, Running, Crouching, Going Prone, Side stepping. Are all done extremely quickly with no inertia or delay from the characters movements. This all leads to problems like twitch shooting. 360 no scopes and many other things you would find in your favorite shooters like Call of Duty and Battlefield.

1.) Leaning speed has lead to people rapidly spamming the Q and E buttons to bob and weave their head while spraying people down.

2.) Going prone from the standing position takes a mere split second all while allowing you to hipfire your weapon on the way down.

3.) While rolling you are allowed to not only shoot but aim with hipfire mid roll.

4.) The Speed of walking and sprinting have been constrained to two speeds with nothing in between. With walking being arguably slow and sprinting being pretty fast.

These are just some of the problems with the current movement system that leads to Call of Duty levels of play not Dayz.

Next Gunplay,

Things like; Hipfire and ADS are all done extremely quickly with little to no feeling of weight, sway or recoil at all. At least compared to .62 levels, which I believe were in the right direction to where the game should be.

 

Conclusion,

All the choices in the games design to speed up and add to the fluidity of movement at the cost of realism and simulation have detracted from the vary foundation Dayz was built upon and leaves the game in a position which is impossible to achieve its original vision of creating a hardcore zombie survival simulator. All these design flaws in the foundations of the game add up to make the game play no better than the next Call of Duty or Battlefield or whatever casual triple A shooter is coming out this year. Without fixing or attempting to fix these vital flaws to the game will forever leave Dayz handicapped in its pursuit to create a truly Hardcore zombie survival simulator.

 

Now I do understand that it may be too late for Dayz or at least the standalone at this point. And the reasoning for these design decisions were not to better the game but to dumb it down for consoles. To make more money and effectively sacrifice Dayz for the betterment of Bohemia so they can funnel all the new money they made from consoles to their next installment in their beloved Arma series. But I didn't come here to bash bohemia about their business practices. I wrote this so hopefully somebody at bohemia will read this and be aware of the major issues to the vary foundation of the game. And not only that so anyone reading this can be aware of these issues as well and understand why Dayz in its current form cannot and will not be able to achieve its vision of being a truly Hardcore zombie survival simulator.

 

 

If you agree with what I have said here and would like to see Dayz return to its original vision, please. Upvote, Like, Comment. do whatever part you can to make this post be seen by Bohemia and others so they can at least be aware of the concerns we have of the game and at the very least wipe any uncertainty from our minds that "they just dont know". taking unfortunate ignorance off the table and leave us confident in knowing, WITHOUT ANY DOUBT, that these choices have been made PURPOSEFULLY. VOLITIONALLY. and not by mere mistake to go against the core foundations of dayz. to degrade it. and make it into something that it was never meant to be. something it never SHOULD be.

Thank you!

 

From One,

lakevu

 

 

Edited August 30, 2023 by lakevu
grammar, repeats, Additions

[Dialectic 6]

These aren't exactly foundational. The game looks and feels great, especially when you see it in 3rd person the movements are very good.
You do bring up points about shooting and rolling, never tried, not sure how effective it is, it should be like a 40 degree cone of fire.

Same with drop-shooting. I don't remember how 0.62 felt. I feel very weighty in this version, but stamina needs improvement.

[lakevu 98]

On 11/20/2021 at 2:07 AM, Dialectic said:

These aren't exactly foundational. The game looks and feels great, especially when you see it in 3rd person the movements are very good.
You do bring up points about shooting and rolling, never tried, not sure how effective it is, it should be like a 40 degree cone of fire.

Same with drop-shooting. I don't remember how 0.62 felt. I feel very weighty in this version, but stamina needs improvement.

I completely disagree. They may not be the "complete" foundation of the game. As there are many more like Survival, Looting and Base building. But they are irrefutably foundational to the game. I would agree that the game "feels great" in the sense that it is smooth but smoothness does not mean that the game as a whole is very good. Especially in this case where they sacrifice Realism and Simulation to make it happen in a game that is supposedly a "Survival Simulator". I believe what is happening is that people from the mod (the origins of the game) are being outnumbered by those that recently got into the game whether it be console or pc and have no experience with the games previous "feeling" of the past. And have no idea that the game can be so much better like it was in the past that they were able to experience. 

[DefectiveWater 539]

100% agree that movement and gunplay isn't up to what you would expect of DayZ.

Escape from Tarkov has both (I didn't play it, only saw YouTube vids of it) natural movement and more natural gunplay.
Guns have weight to them in EFT, aiming takes more than a split second, and one could expect just that from DayZ.
But instead, DayZ feels like COD4 when it comes to the feel of the movement and shooting.

Hopefully gunplay get's an overhaul someday... I mean there are mods that make it so much more different, so it's possible.

[Dialectic 6]

1.) Leaning speed has lead to people rapidly spamming the Q and E buttons to bob and weave their head while spraying people down.

You're right, I've seen this often. A stamina penalty isn't enough, you have to slow the movement or add a delay before leaning again.

2.) Going prone from the standing position takes a mere split second all while allowing you to hipfire your weapon on the way down.

Yes, absolutely this is wrong, the gun should be up, you to avoid spiking it into the dirt, the character should drop to his kneed before hitting the ground with his chest.

3.) While rolling you are allowed to not only shoot but aim with hipfire mid roll.

yea shouldn't let you aim accurately while rolling, totally unrealistic.

4.) The Speed of walking and sprinting have been constrained to two speeds with nothing in between. With walking being arguably slow and sprinting being pretty fast.

Not sure what you mean, there's jogging and crouch running. Walking is slow, that's about it.

 

I 100% agree with you after reading your post again and doing my own comparisons, a lot about 0.62 looks a lot better than it does now.
I didn't play early DayZ, I did play some of the mod. 0.62 gunplay and movement loots REAL, like how it should for this game. I didn't know they changed it.

Also ragdolls, that's a HUGE part of movement. They were removed for like two or three animations. Oh my god good it looked. I watched this video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgVHisHSwIw 
Fuck me, they literally removed the most realistic shooting mechanics and replaced it with an exact replica of PUBG's crosshair, and here I thought I was playing a better version.

[lakevu 98]

5 hours ago, DefectiveWater said:

100% agree that movement and gunplay isn't up to what you would expect of DayZ.

Escape from Tarkov has both (I didn't play it, only saw YouTube vids of it) natural movement and more natural gunplay.
Guns have weight to them in EFT, aiming takes more than a split second, and one could expect just that from DayZ.
But instead, DayZ feels like COD4 when it comes to the feel of the movement and shooting.

Hopefully gunplay get's an overhaul someday... I mean there are mods that make it so much more different, so it's possible.

Thank you for posting. Yes, I hope as well they do get some attention. However, my true worry is that these sacrifices to realism and simulation will spill over into the next Arma game. That is my true fear and the main reason I voiced my concerns.

[lakevu 98]

4 hours ago, Dialectic said:

1.) Leaning speed has lead to people rapidly spamming the Q and E buttons to bob and weave their head while spraying people down.

You're right, I've seen this often. A stamina penalty isn't enough, you have to slow the movement or add a delay before leaning again.

2.) Going prone from the standing position takes a mere split second all while allowing you to hipfire your weapon on the way down.

Yes, absolutely this is wrong, the gun should be up, you to avoid spiking it into the dirt, the character should drop to his kneed before hitting the ground with his chest.

3.) While rolling you are allowed to not only shoot but aim with hipfire mid roll.

yea shouldn't let you aim accurately while rolling, totally unrealistic.

4.) The Speed of walking and sprinting have been constrained to two speeds with nothing in between. With walking being arguably slow and sprinting being pretty fast.

Not sure what you mean, there's jogging and crouch running. Walking is slow, that's about it.

 

I 100% agree with you after reading your post again and doing my own comparisons, a lot about 0.62 looks a lot better than it does now.
I didn't play early DayZ, I did play some of the mod. 0.62 gunplay and movement loots REAL, like how it should for this game. I didn't know they changed it.

Also ragdolls, that's a HUGE part of movement. They were removed for like two or three animations. Oh my god good it looked. I watched this video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgVHisHSwIw 
Fuck me, they literally removed the most realistic shooting mechanics and replaced it with an exact replica of PUBG's crosshair, and here I thought I was playing a better version.

Thank you for posting. And thanks for linking that video. That is the same one I watched as well and was what made me aware of the flaws in the current system and drove me to make this post.

Edited November 22, 2021 by lakevu

[Dialectic 6]

I'm not sure why they'd change it. I played then but maybe like a few hours. I remember distinctively the Arma 2 style crosshair. The Ragdolls also and the Melee was actually really good. The rest of the game is better, but the shooting is too precise.
Aiming your gun happens instantly and you can move all around and still be pinpoint. I liked the old system better. It seems like they went for a more casual style, against their own principle of a hardcore survival sim.

[lakevu 98]

1 hour ago, Dialectic said:

I'm not sure why they'd change it. I played then but maybe like a few hours. I remember distinctively the Arma 2 style crosshair. The Ragdolls also and the Melee was actually really good. The rest of the game is better, but the shooting is too precise.
Aiming your gun happens instantly and you can move all around and still be pinpoint. I liked the old system better. It seems like they went for a more casual style, against their own principle of a hardcore survival sim.

Thanks for posting. Yeah, I agree I believe this decision was made because of the release on console. Im hoping that with Arma 4 they dont make this same choice. That was my main reason for voicing my concern. Because if Arma 4 ends up playing like dayz now there will be no hope of a truly hardcore survival experience in the foreseeable future.

[Kohlbar 270]

I agree. There should be more consequence and considerations to shooting. I agree that's it's way too run-and-gun style right now, there's no weapon sway after sprinting. It feels way too fast-paced. I also hope they revamp the gun system. The gunplay is perfect right now for pvp call of dayz servers, so jsut let them have the current iteration and bring back realistic weapon dynamics to the hardcore and vanilla servers

[lakevu 98]

5 hours ago, Kohlbar said:

I agree. There should be more consequence and considerations to shooting. I agree that's it's way too run-and-gun style right now, there's no weapon sway after sprinting. It feels way too fast-paced. I also hope they revamp the gun system. The gunplay is perfect right now for pvp call of dayz servers, so jsut let them have the current iteration and bring back realistic weapon dynamics to the hardcore and vanilla servers

Thanks for posting! Yeah a glaring issue is no extra weapon sway after running. Like you can't be serious with that.

[Kohlbar 270]

19 hours ago, lakevu said:

Thanks for posting! Yeah a glaring issue is no extra weapon sway after running. Like you can't be serious with that.

It's ridiculous to say the least. There's a popular "legacy gunplay" mod, but that should really be vanilla.

[lakevu 98]

On 11/28/2021 at 5:57 AM, Kohlbar said:

It's ridiculous to say the least. There's a popular "legacy gunplay" mod, but that should really be vanilla.

ahhh yes. I did give that a try on one of the Dayone servers. Seems very promising!

[lakevu 98]

boost

[Parazight 1599]

19 hours ago, lakevu said:

boost

Pretty good thread.  You've addressed a critical balancing issue. 

Inertia and mechanics that strengthen perma-death make the game much more cutthroat.  But with this, there's still nothing to adequately replicate moral consequences.  So, the inertia you experience in real life is fine because people don't regularly kill each other.   In this game you have a sandbox, people, and ways to kill them without penalty.

But as you've noticed, there's the business of attracting consumers.  If players die easily after spending enormous effort then they tend to quit playing sooner out of frustration.  The point being, the developers are very much aware of the situation, but the solution is not easy.  Yea?

[lakevu 98]

On 1/9/2022 at 10:40 AM, Parazight said:

Pretty good thread.  You've addressed a critical balancing issue. 

Inertia and mechanics that strengthen perma-death make the game much more cutthroat.  But with this, there's still nothing to adequately replicate moral consequences.  So, the inertia you experience in real life is fine because people don't regularly kill each other.   In this game you have a sandbox, people, and ways to kill them without penalty.

But as you've noticed, there's the business of attracting consumers.  If players die easily after spending enormous effort then they tend to quit playing sooner out of frustration.  The point being, the developers are very much aware of the situation, but the solution is not easy.  Yea?

Yeah thats true. But i feel like the game has suffered enormously since catering to console players in almost every way except muh graphics which is even debatable.

[DefectiveWater 539]

7 hours ago, lakevu said:

But i feel like the game has suffered enormously since catering to console players in almost every way

Examples of that?

[rackinglad27 138]

1 hour ago, DefectiveWater said:

Examples of that?

you won't get any, this guy is posting negative stuff all over this forum. and when someone tries to get a point across using MUH this and MUH that then I simply stop reading because said person posesses the intellect of a sea cucumber. 

[THEGordonFreeman 664]

10 hours ago, lakevu said:

But i feel like the game has suffered enormously since catering to console players in almost every way....

I've been wanting this game to be better since 2014.  The day they announced the new controller and all the other changes, on this very forum, I screamed that dumbing this game down to consoles would be it's ruin.  ANd here we are 8 years later discussing how much we loathe the gunplay, the vehicle physics, the lack of base building mechanics, ad nauseum. Deciding to put this game on consoles was the single worst decision for DayZ hardcore players, or DayZ players that want a true DayZ experience.  We will never get it.  Not even modding will get us there.  Close, maybe, but ultimately, the limitations imposed by both a money grab and poor design decisions have brought us to this point. 

Edited January 19, 2022 by THEGordonFreeman

[DefectiveWater 539]

50 minutes ago, THEGordonFreeman said:

I screamed that dumbing this game down to consoles would be it's ruin

How did they dumb this game down to consoles?

[General Zod 1118]

2 minutes ago, DefectiveWater said:

How did they dumb this game down to consoles?

It's because console players are filthy casuals and every game that's also available on consoles has to be dumbed down. 

[DefectiveWater 539]

2 minutes ago, General Zod said:

It's because console players are filthy casuals and every game that's also available on consoles has to be dumbed down. 

I seriously hope you are joking, because if not that's 3 people just blaming consoles for something they can't explain. DayZ was always in a bad state, consoles never affected that.

[General Zod 1118]

2 minutes ago, DefectiveWater said:

I seriously hope you are joking, because if not that's 3 people just blaming consoles for something they can't explain. DayZ was always in a bad state, consoles never affected that.

If you reveal the hidden content in my signature you'll know the answer. 

Edited January 19, 2022 by General Zod

[DefectiveWater 539]

6 minutes ago, General Zod said:

If you reveal the hidden content in my signature you'll know the answer. 

Decent but slightly outdated PC specs? is that what you mean?

Like seriously people... how big of conspiracy theorists can you get? console this, console that... and yet THE MOST popular servers on PC, the platform you are so proud of, are 3pp with traders and tarkov gun arsenal with HEAVY PVP focus and I can't forget loot100x...

Edited January 19, 2022 by DefectiveWater

[General Zod 1118]

4 minutes ago, DefectiveWater said:

Decent but slightly outdated PC specs? is that what you mean?

Like seriously people... how big of conspiracy theorists can you get? console this, console that... and yet THE MOST popular servers on PC, the platform you are so proud of, are 3pp with traders and tarkov gun arsenal with HEAVY PVP focus and I can't forget loot100x...

That I own all of the Playstation consoles. And yes the PC is old as dirt and I'm not going to upgrade it until it dies because as of now there are no games that would make me want to spend 2k+ on a new setup. 

PS, I now have one 32" Benq 4K monitor instead of two 23"