DayZ Frostline Dev Blog Week 46

[lynn.zaw 252]

Disclaimer

Please be aware: Information shared in our development blog represents a work in progress, not the final product. Contents and features discussed are subject to change before release. We aim to provide insight and foster community engagement, but details may evolve as development continues. Thank you for joining us on this journey, with the understanding that what you see here is a glimpse into the process.

Survivors,

It’s been a while, but welcome back to our DayZ Frostline Dev blog, where we pull back the curtain on the development of the DayZ Frostline Expansion. This blog is our way of sharing the highs and lows of our journey with you, the community. Your unwavering support has been essential to the success of DayZ Frostline.
In this edition, we’re looking back at the first week since DayZ Frostline’s release, what we have been cooking after the release, and changes we will be making with next week's patch.

Player Count Since the Release of DayZ Frostline

As our header suggests, we hit a peak of player counts just five days after the release on the 20th of October. We cannot thank you, the community, enough for the love and support that you have given to this very dear project that we have worked on. The image below should give you a break down of daily user and CCU by different platforms in the first week after the release. 

Interesting Comparative Stats on Players' Behavior (First Week After Release)

Our data reveals a key trend: players are more likely to prioritize their health and well-being in Sakhal compared to Chernarus or Livonia. This is evident through a significantly higher usage of immunity boosts and heat buffs, prompted by the unique challenges presented by DayZ Frostline.
While we'd like to say it’s all smooth sailing (just like our new boats), there has also been an alarming rise in the number of players contracting Kuru in Sakhal.

Design Perspective

Southern crossing

During the closed beta, and ever since the release, we have been closely monitoring player movement throughout Sakhal. This data had shown us that while the distribution of players across the entire map has been fairly balanced, there was still some space for improvement in terms of how players travel to the southern military peninsula.

While we had hoped that presence of boats, together with ice sheets covering substential area of the south sea, would be enough to allow players to cross from more than one point, but the data proved us otherwise. It showed us that players would most often choose to walk across a land bridge on the western coast rather than take a path through the frozen sea.
For this reason, we have decided to extend the southern coast slightly further and repositioned many of the ice sheets found within the bay. This should allow for much easier and direct paths for players to take, while still keeping the challenge of traveling on the frozen sheets.

With the improved way to get across the sea, it also made sense for us to slightly change the adjecent areas as well.
We had taken a look at the distribution of military bases throughout the island and chose to add a new military outpost near the crossing.

Geothermal plant

With its convenient location, the geothermal power plant had become a place many players visited while traveling through the middle of the island. Whether you thoroughly looted it or simply stopped by to check out this new complex, you have shown us that you liked this location. However, at the end of the day, the power plant alone had not quite become the point of interest we had hoped it would be.
For this reason, we have decided to make it more interesting both visually and in terms of loot. You will notice an increased military presence within the area, which not only expands on the idea of the plant being a vital resource for the people who used to live on the island, but also brings more loot.
We encourage everyone to check out the geothermal plant.

Loot

We investigated how loot moves around the island and identified some areas that could use improvement.

Large Buildings

One of the things we were as disappointed to see as our players was that, despite adding many new buildings to the game, we were struggling to fill them with loot. This led us to split some of our multistory buildings into multiple sections, allowing us to populate them more successfully. This is a bit of an experiment, so please do let us know if you notice more loot in military barracks, hospitals, and other multistory buildings. This change has only been applied to Sakhal for now, but if it proves effective, we are open to implementing it on our other maps as well.

Elevated Places

It can feel very unrewarding to climb tall towers or cranes, only to find a t-shirt or a pair of torn-up shoes. In an effort to improve looting, we have balanced both the spawn points and the loot that appears in these locations. It should now be worth checking out these buildings and objects, as even along the coast, they might contain valuable loot such as ammo or guns more frequently.

We have also focused on improving loot presence at the plant. New objects have been placed on the roof. These objects, like crates and pallets, have been deliberately arranged to spawn loot, so if you find yourself getting luckier in these areas, that is the reason.

Loot balance

As previously mentioned, we have taken a critical look at how our players engage with the game. Many of you reported that loot progression on Sakhal still isn't quite on par with our other maps. We are committed to improving this with each update, and it will remain an ongoing effort moving forward.
In that vein, we examined the availability of certain guns that were perhaps too easily obtainable and relocated them to different areas on the map. Weaker guns will now also have a slightly increased presence, especially along the coast, to enhance gameplay balance.
We have also observed that many players found our bunker highly rewarding—maybe even too much so. As a result, we have taken steps to limit the number and frequency of gun spawns in that location.

- Martin Palaugari, Game Designer

Environmental Perspective

With this 1.26 patch, we analyzed lots of player data and began working on tackling some areas that could benefit from improvements. There were three main things we chose to look into: the geothermal plant, loot availability on the southern coast, and the viability of the eastern side of Sakhal as a loot route.

For the geothermal plant, being a POI consisting of several new assets, and a significant structure on the island from a lore perspective, we decided it made more sense for the area to have a military and medical presence. With this update, you will clearly see that there was an effort to protect the plant during the early stages of the outbreak. These changes also offer a stronger loot reward for players, while the fortified rooftops iterate more verticality to PvP gameplay. Additionally, we added two military checkpoints on the southern coast as an option for players to collect some gear before venturing into the deadly valleys of Burukan. All of these updates can be seen in the video above.
- Mike Docherty , Environment Artist

What's next for the Dev Blog & Sakhal?

The Dev Blog is an excellent tool for sharing early information with our core community, encouraging them to spread the word, speculate, and engage in discussions leading up to releases. Moving forward, we will reduce the frequency of Dev Blogs but will continue to publish them whenever notable developments occur—such as this week's current experimental update, which will move to stable next week. Of course, this should demonstrate our ongoing commitment to further iterating and optimizing DayZ Frostline and Sakhal.