Basic/Limited Friend Markers

[daveallen10 1]

*Before commenting - PLEASE READ* This is not a repost, and I went through the search function thoroughly. Although similar ideas have been raised - I was not able to find this specific suggestion before. I know that there have been many ideas to add "Friends", "Clans", and "Party Matchmaking" over the years, and the community has rightly argued against any such additions. This is a different take and I want people to read the suggestion before jumping to any conclusions...If you still disagree, that is perfectly valid.

Problem / Issue: Currently, it is very hard to play with friends in the game (outside of those met during gameplay) because it is very hard to physically find them in-game with how spawns are distributed. This makes it extraordinarily difficult to teach friends how to play (as new players). As we all know, DayZ has a pretty high initial learning curve, and right now you really need to spend 5-10 hours minimum playing on your own to be able to survive, navigate the map, etc... So if you have friends who are new to the game, it is very difficult to play with them and many will simply give up on the game. There are some 3rd party tools like iZurvive, but honestly it is really silly trying to ask a friend/new player over Discord "hey, I know you're just trying to learn the controls, but can you actually run around in the open and look for a city sign? By the way, it's in cyrillic and good luck pronouncing what you see".

Suggestion: Implement a VERY RUDIMENTARY in-game "Group" system of up to 4-8 people. Enter the menu, click on a friend from your Steam friend list, or type in a Steam player name directly. This sends an in-game message to the other player which they can Accept/Reject. This will do two things: 

1. Adds the player's steam name and player name in-game to a list of individuals in your "Group" via a simplistic menu. In-game, if you hover your cursor/gunsight over the player within 50 meters for more than 3 seconds, their in-game name will pop up (e.g. John Doe). This is an indication they are a friendly, but does not appear fast enough to prevent friendly-fire incidents (which is a purposeful feature in the game). Basically, it lets you check your targets in a semi-realistic way since player skins change after each respawn.

2. At distances over 1 km, a faint marker will appear on the horizon showing the general direction of the other player in the gameworld and approximate distance (e.g. 10km), similar to squad markers from Arma 3. This can be toggled on/off in the settings. At distances under 1 km, this marker disappears. This allows for new spawns to understand the rough direction of their friends who spawn in on the map and which direction to work towards, without the feature being easily exploitable. Players under 1 km must still find each other visually.

Note on Gameplay Intention: I am well aware that many of us, myself included, see DayZ as a survival "simulator". Therefore, unrealistic elements like UI tools that let you magically find other players feel "gamey" to some degree. But with any simulator or game going for realism, compromises must be made for overall better or more engaging gameplay - and some of these are already in the game. Then intention of the above mechanic is a very simple compromise: allow new players/new spawns to find a friend, or re-find a friend they made while playing without giving them an exploitable advantage. Yes, freshly players cannot beeline for their friend because they will starve to death before they get there, but it at least gives some kind of direction to work towards without having to use tools outside of the game. Also, it would let people create at least some kind of informal group system in DayZ without it being over the top. I think the most fun had it DayZ is with other players, but there is no formal support for groups at all. 

Some people might say this changes the game balance by encouraging real-world friends to team up in-game instead of struggling solo. My answer is this: they already do. Good players with hundreds of hours in the game already know how to find each other as fresh spawns, communicating in Discord and using 3rd party maps, etc. Therefore good players can already find each other and create extremely powerful groups (using Discord, which honestly is the most unrealistic element here) , while new players will have little luck doing the same and will be ganged up on. Probably more frustratingly, the lack of any mechanic at all means it is virtually-impossible to get new friends to play the game with you outside of some heavily-modded servers. You cannot just hop into the game, find a friend, and try to survive together and just have a fun few hours. I have at least 5 friends who would instantly buy the game if we could play together in some rudimentary fashion, so Bohemia is just missing out on a cash cow here. Playing with friends is a chore, and it shouldn't be. I fully believe that DayZ should never become a casual game like PubG, but at the very least, I want it to be a game that I can play with real-world friends without giving myself a headache. 

Let me know what you guys think... 

Edited January 15, 2023 by daveallen10

[WOLVERlNES 134]

I play on console, I think a system like this could be accomplished by letting a survivor select another survivor(s) in the online menu once in the same server — then click Add to Group which prompts naming a New Group during that session.

For the group to be formed, the invited survivor(s) must accept group invite, but once invited a survivor can’t be spammed with multiple group invitations.

A Tourist Map 🗺 is added to the inventory of all Group Members once two or more survivors connect via Group Function.

An Orienteering Compass 🧭 with a GPS Receiver + Battery are also added instantly to each survivor’s inventory.

This will provide the necessary tools, include immersion, and offer useful learnings on how to use the very under-utilized Tourist Map + Compass + GPS Receiver combination.

Edited February 7, 2023 by WOLVERlNES

[DayzDayzFanboy 1280]

How is magically receiving a map, compass and GPS appearing suddenly in your backpack immersive? 

[nemorus 160]

People playing in a group are being hit by a very hard rock called "spawning". Lore says a few words about survivors but nothing about their past. How is that they "spawn" at the beach/forest/field with nothing? Maps such as Namalsk are even more ridiculous - people spawn almost naked and surrounded by glaciers - where's any logic to it? Its challenging but mostly its weird. In my opinion that's the thing that needs to be touched first. But... Is this really that important? I would say only if discord&teamspeak/... were nonexistent tech. But because of them the game is too easy to navigate already. Not to mention that features such as radios are almost abandoned by majority.

[WOLVERlNES 134]

11 hours ago, DayzDayzFanboy said:

How is magically receiving a map, compass and GPS appearing suddenly in your backpack immersive? 

It’s immersive because it gives survivors the tools within the game to navigate to one-another without using iZurvive app or something similar.
 

Remember this concept is targeting new players that don’t even know how to play the game yet and reinforcing in-game tool knowledge. But also is beneficial for groups of friends with mixed levels of experience to coordinate and meet-up.

A lot of potential players are turned-off by the game on initial play sessions because a feature like this doesn’t exist.

[DayzDayzFanboy 1280]

12 minutes ago, WOLVERlNES said:

It’s immersive because it gives survivors the tools within the game to navigate to one-another without using iZurvive app or something similar.
 

Remember this concept is targeting new players that don’t even know how to play the game yet and reinforcing in-game tool knowledge. But also is beneficial for groups of friends with mixed levels of experience to coordinate and meet-up.

A lot of potential players are turned-off by the game on initial play sessions because a feature like this doesn’t exist.

Do you not think this gives unfair advantage against solo players? I would hate to see a feature like this introduced to the base game. I'm sure community servers could really easily give all new spawns a compass and map. Then it's fair for everyone that choose to play that way. 

[Parazight 1594]

Great idea for mods. Terrible for base game. 

[WOLVERlNES 134]

3 hours ago, DayzDayzFanboy said:

Do you not think this gives unfair advantage against solo players? I would hate to see a feature like this introduced to the base game. I'm sure community servers could really easily give all new spawns a compass and map. Then it's fair for everyone that choose to play that way. 

Forget about solo players for the moment, I play solo often myself as well. The challenge is, you have two friends that have NEVER played DayZ before and you want to travel with them to help them learn how to play.

 

How can this be achieved?

 

I have a half-dozen friends that didn’t play more than one time because the learning curve is so steep, and there was no way to even meet up with them. Players that know what to do is easy, but trying to provide guidance to players with zero knowledge is very challenging.

My friends didn’t know where they were, how to navigate nor how to survive. They didn’t know what to avoid and what to do, even as I tried to explain it to them.

A few of my friends managed to break that initial barrier of learning the basics, but more than half said — fuck this game and never played again. They died over and over and were seldom able to actually meet up with me or other friends.

OP made this post to try and make a suggestion on how friends can meet up and play together that are new to the game and don’t know how to play, especially how to navigate.

Navigation should be achievable sans third-party apps like iZurvive. I play on Xbox and it wasn’t until the pairing with GPS and Compass functionality were added that I actually started using Tourist Maps.

Perhaps, the solution is to form a group before entering the server within games Ui then all spawn in together in voice proximity of each other.

Edited February 7, 2023 by WOLVERlNES

[Parazight 1594]

I don't see that at all.  Plenty of people have been able to survive and enjoy the game just fine.   There are plenty of resources available online as well.  I would say that very few people actually need the direct help of others.  Having introduced DayZ to a number of people, I can say that just giving advice over Discord is plenty.  In-game tracking in the vanilla product is wholly unnecessary, imo.  

[nemorus 160]

Let's not say that this game is not for everybody. For that is rather obvious. Different people search for different things - especially when most games are treating players like children. Game's about surviving and survival is fairly ruthless. Live and learn. Die and learn. Won't get any easier really.

[DayzDayzFanboy 1280]

10 hours ago, WOLVERlNES said:

How can this be achieved?

Community servers

[WOLVERlNES 134]

New players are going to be on Official Servers. I play on Official Servers, again new players and friends shouldn’t have to rely on a community server mod that could be shutdown at anytime.

Edited February 8, 2023 by WOLVERlNES

[DayzDayzFanboy 1280]

1 hour ago, WOLVERlNES said:

New players are going to be on Official Servers. I play on Official Servers, again new players and friends shouldn’t have to rely on a community server mod that could be shutdown at anytime.

And regular players on official servers shouldn't have stupid mechanics forced upon them because some kid can't find his friend. 

[lemmac 99]

Start them on empty servers, during the server day... more loot, less stress, easier to survive and learn the basics. Tell them where the sun is in relation to compass bearings and thus the rough heading their shadow is pointing. That info is almost as good as a compass. Ask them what landmarks they can see and whether the road or railway is nearest the sea (if Chernarus - which it should be unless you made them shell out for Livonia before they knew they liked the game lol). With your knowledge you should be able to deduce where they are in relation to you, let them know which direction they should head to find you as you do the same to reach them. Stick to the coast and the main road/railway. Don't be afraid to suicide yourself to get closer to them - better you loot up together than you carry a load of OP gear to them. If they are really struggling with the game mechanics tell them to lock themself in house and go make a coffee while you get to them. Some things are easier to show than tell. If they can stay alive for half an hour max you'll have found each other. They'll pick it up in no time 😉

Edited February 8, 2023 by lemmac

[Riddick_2K 125]

If it's just to learn and practice, this has been around for years, but no one remembers.
>>> steamdb.info/app/223350/
It is not only used to test servers and mods offline and can also be used to assemble a well-performing server by yourself and not worry about expensive and poorly performing hostings (in this case, however, it must be remembered that open ports do not always work. .. not always and not at all, but if you fall into the "lucky" group, the performance of self-made hardware is excellent at much lower costs if you consider use beyond a single year). To invite friends to have fun in peace and / or teach someone "the basics", you can always use direct access via IP. From what I understand, that always works.

[WOLVERlNES 134]

10 hours ago, DayzDayzFanboy said:

And regular players on official servers shouldn't have stupid mechanics forced upon them because some kid can't find his friend. 

Nobody’s holding a gun to your head. It’s an option if friends form an in-game group. If one doesn’t want to start with a map, compass and GPS then just don’t initiate a group.

And age has nothing to do with it, many of my friends that gave DayZ a single try were in their 30s and gamers that play zombie games all the time.

And because there’s no option like this I’d say more than half of new players give-up playing almost immediately. And if they played less than a couple hours on Xbox they can simply get their money back and delete the game.

Why are you so hard-headed to prevent using in-game tools for new player groups to learn how to navigate and find each other?

[DayzDayzFanboy 1280]

4 hours ago, WOLVERlNES said:

Nobody’s holding a gun to your head. It’s an option if friends form an in-game group. If one doesn’t want to start with a map, compass and GPS then just don’t initiate a group.

And age has nothing to do with it, many of my friends that gave DayZ a single try were in their 30s and gamers that play zombie games all the time.

And because there’s no option like this I’d say more than half of new players give-up playing almost immediately. And if they played less than a couple hours on Xbox they can simply get their money back and delete the game.

Why are you so hard-headed to prevent using in-game tools for new player groups to learn how to navigate and find each other?

You're missing the point. You are forcing it on all players. It gives players in groups an advantage over players not in groups. Why are you so hard headed that you can't see this?