What MineZ is Doing Right, and What DayZ Could Learn From It.

[vesmo 21]

Most retarded point in the whole text

-More eyes watching their sectors

-Higher situational awareness

-More guns sending hell down range when things go to shit

-More inventory space which allows you to carry car parts and other stuff without sacrificing food+water

-Ability to guard corpses in case someone dies

-Ability to define roles that cancel out each others disadvantage

But OOHHHH you need artificial gameplay mechanics to give you an actual reason to form a group....

You really are one hell of a fool, go play MineZ

Those are all benefits that come from IRL friends. If you meet another STRANGE survivor, why group up? You have to share loot and are bound to aggro more zeds. The only protection comes from bandits, and even then you are risking a lot when approaching that stranger as he might just kill you. If you are good at the game, you can get everything you need alone, and probably faster and more easily than with another survivor, and zeds are just a joke. An increase in difficulty is definitely needed imo....and this includes the toning down of military loot/weapon spawns overall, which seems to be OPs main point (though I would mostly cut down on ammo spawns once the auto-filling magazines have been fixed)

The rest of the ideas in the OP are absolutely fine with me except for name tags. Don't get where all this hate is coming from, it's like the fucking Lord of the Flies ITT....

[Meepo (DayZ) 13]

Don't even try, TimeGlitch. 90% of the people that play are CoD kiddos who enjoy being bandits so much that ANY idea that discourages banditry is instantly shot down.

I agree with greatly reducing the number of sniper rifles. Hell, get rid of them entirely so those carebears camping on hills will actually have to get off their asses and play like the rest of us. And since this game is still in Alpha, I also agree with doing a wipe every once in a big while so everyone starts over at the same level and has to build their way up again.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Don't even try, TimeGlitch. 90% of the people that play are CoD kiddos who enjoy being bandits so much that ANY idea that discourages banditry is instantly shot down.

I can honestly say I've never seen someone use the phrase "CoD kid" and then go on to make a post that wasn't a pile of steaming shit.

Anyway.

Characters Alive: 489,886

Bandits Alive: 87,707

18% of players are bandits and only ~16% of player deaths are caused by PvP. So your 90% figure is slightly off. Just slightly.

Perhaps we shoot down calls to "discourage" banditry because it's a key part of what makes this game compelling and different from other generic cooperative zombie survival experiences?

Maybe it's not all a "CoD kid" conspiracy, but just regular 'ole gamers who are excited about a game that finally has the balls to do something with PvP besides rope it off behind closed doors and treat it like some kind of add-on or spectator sport. A designer who actually wants to *gasp* make it part of normal game play instead of some kind of bonus mode.

It's cool, though. If it makes you feel better to pretend we're all just 14-year-olds out to ruin your evening then you can go right on. Eventually you will adapt, or get bored and leave.

Edited July 16, 2012 by ZedsDeadBaby

[Meepo (DayZ) 13]

I like how you put "discourage" in quotes to imply that I'm trying to shut down PvP completely just to reinforce your point. Clever. And are you familiar with the word "hyperbole"? Here, I'll get the definition it for you: "Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally".I think you're taking things slightly too seriously to make yourself look better. Just slightly.

It's cool, though. If it makes you feel better to pretend you're a big, bad bandit up on your hilltop then you can go right on. Eventually, Rocket will do find something that will discourage banditry and you'll get bored and leave.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Meepo

[slonlo 43]

Ok so I had to skip to the end after page 3 for the 50th time when the kid said reducing military spawns is the answer, so feel free to bitch me out if this has been mentioned (I mean it has, but maybe not in specific response to him).

Reducing the military spawns will ONLY HURT the "friendly" players and those who play legitimately. THOSE GUNS ARE YOUR PROTECTION!! It has been said that they are only over-abundant due to hopping/duping. If you reduce the spawn count, unscrupulous players will spawn them themselves. Then that "asshole bandit" in a bush on a hill that spawned while you were looting that hangar will be the ONLY guy with the AS50. While your buddy on the treeline watching your back has a Mak PM and a glowstick. Fixing the exploits is all that is necessary, which is on the agenda and has been covered in about 47 threads a day for the past 3 months.

[Justin619 11]

so by just skimming your post, it seems as though you are saying minez is better because they have sucky weapons like swords, and discourages pvp? also you can see players more easily?

maybe the people who always cry because of dying should go play minez. pvp is important in dayz and i dont think they should get rid of sniper rifles just because people can easily kill eachother with them. -.-

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

I've been playing MinZ for the last couple days and while interesting and kind of fun, it's not as good as dayz. People PVP a lot. You might pass 20 people before one decideds to engage you, but when you pass 50+ people an hour, it's annoying as hell.

High powered weapons (enchanted iron sword/bow) are all over the place and devistating towards someone with basic weapons. At least in DayZ you can kill someone with a makarov, you're pretty much screwed in MineZ if you get attacked with a better weapon than you have.

There are so few places in MineZ to get loot, that people just camp them. So, playing solo means you're rubbing shoulders with other people constantly. 200 players @ 20 loot spawns, it's not a good situation.

DayZ is more of an experience. You can lose yourself in the events of the game.

MineZ is just a rediculously difficult & overly populated minecraft world, with zombies that run and spawn next to you.

Edited July 17, 2012 by bad_mojo

["Lost" Alice 205]

This is a great post, I didn't even know about MineZ. Thank you so much for taking the time to type it up and share :)

Edited July 17, 2012 by Lost Alice

[Antonius Weezel 1]

The problem isn't dayZ, its the players. Once one person kills another, that person is likely to "not make the same mistake twice" and KOS. then 2 becomes 4, four becomes 8, etc. Not to mention the large numbers of groups pre arranged outside of the game who kill everyone not part of their group. DayZ may not punish a playstyle, but very large numbers of players do. Short of completely clearing out the playerbase, there sint much that can be done as far as i can see. maybe add incentive to form groups on the fly in game?. More dependancy on other players and more opportunities for mutual benefit. All i can think of to encourage that would be some kind of class or specialisation system that makes it very difficult to run solo or completely combat based groups.

[vesmo 21]

The problem isn't dayZ, its the players. Once one person kills another, that person is likely to "not make the same mistake twice" and KOS. then 2 becomes 4, four becomes 8, etc. Not to mention the large numbers of groups pre arranged outside of the game who kill everyone not part of their group. DayZ may not punish a playstyle, but very large numbers of players do. Short of completely clearing out the playerbase, there sint much that can be done as far as i can see. maybe add incentive to form groups on the fly in game?. More dependancy on other players and more opportunities for mutual benefit. All i can think of to encourage that would be some kind of class or specialisation system that makes it very difficult to run solo or completely combat based groups.

I think making high-profit spots impossible to loot yourself would go a long way to making people form temporary alliances. Need a better backpack, beans, compass etc? Just go loot a general store! But what if they would always be filled with infected, and a large number prowling the outside too? I feel this would make people team up for a couple of minutes to loot that market together. Maybe they would backstab each other once it's done but at least it would get us to interact with strangers in other ways than just plain shooting. You could still play lonewolf, you would just have to pretty much steer clear of the office buildings, general stores etc. unless you are really well geared.

[septuscap 42]

You're mixing up games with reality... In real life, even after a zombie apocalypse, most people would be happy to see another survivor, and be willing to talk or trade with each other.. There wouldn't be the widespread murder that's common on DayZ.

Completely speculative; it's just as likely that people would splinter off into numerous "tribes" and be extremely xenophobic. I honestly wouldn't feel comfortable staying somewhere once a stranger found out I lived there. Would *I* kill, rape, and pillage? No, that's not who I am -- but the thing about an RPG is I don't have to be who I am IRL. Only ~17% of players are bandits, and only ~15% of player deaths are due to murder. That's not a completely unrealistic scenario. I'm sorry the kids in the playground won't let you into their group, but it's perfectly reasonable. I don't trust you, I don't like you, I don't need you. Three strikes.

Shouldn't we really be more afraid of the zombies?

Would you be more afraid of an animal or a human being that wanted to do you harm? Aside from the initial hysteria, zombies are just animals in large numbers. They are nowhere near as dangerous as human beings. And I think many post-apocalyptic stories stress this fact; that the scariest part of the apocalypse is the breakdown of civilization (ie. HUMAN RELATIONS). Imagine any of those stories with the caveat that the stores were still open, and people all communicated with each other using CB radios, trading what they needed with each other. Not so scary.

Should the characters be as accurate as they currently are with guns? Didn't we all just wash up on the beach with a bandaid and a bottle of tylenol? Why are we all expert marksmen? Has anyone actually shot guns in real life? It's pretty difficult, and a hard skill to master. Even at the shooting range with no threat of other people or zombies to bother me, I don't always hit the bullseye at 10 yards (30 feet).

I think most people have atrocious aim as is. In most fire fights, I see bullets landing AROUND me more often than not, it's actually pretty hilarious. I usually can run from cover to cover and expect NOT to be shot. I'm going to assume you've not even tried sniping past 300m in DayZ, just judging by your attitude. Say what you will about the cowardice of sniping, it takes a lot of skill to land some of those shots. If it's an easy shot, it's usually the MARK'S fault.

[elliotle 6]

So for those of you who don't know, MineZ is a mod for Minecraft that's trying to emulate DayZ. It's not trying to BE DayZ, it's simply taking the open-world, persistent survival apocalypse and translating it over to Minecraft. The mod is in "Beta", but it's very clearly still in technical Alpha. For those interested, head over to /r/MineZ

Who cares, though? DayZ already exists. What could we possibly learn from some cheap imitator? Well, turns out MineZ is doing a lot of things that DayZ could learn from, and I think could work really well towards improving player relations in the future.

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MineZ has a very clear "Friendly" stance that is easy to see and duplicate without compromising offensive ability.

In MineZ, simply "blocking" with right click is usually a sign of a friendly. This happens instantly and doesn't take 1-3 seconds for an animation. If they're barreling towards you with no intention of stopping, it's not a friendly. This makes it pretty damn easy to read someone's intentions. You get a few tricksters, but overall, it's much easier to read than in DayZ.

DayZ has a few of these, but almost all of them require the player to "disarm", or at least drop their ability to aim/shoot for the moment. Waggling with Q and E is currently the best option, but even that can really risky at times.

DayZ also struggles with visibility. Half the time, you aren't even going to see the other person unless they're right in front of you, and if they're right in front of you, someone is almost always going to shoot first. It's sad, but true. Maybe with something quicker, and immediately recognizable with a simple press of a button, DayZ survivors wouldn't always have to shoot on sight in these scenarios. I'm thinking "Wave".

Grouping up has great benefits, while solo play isn't punished.

This is something DayZ struggles with, but MineZ gets a lot of it right on it's first try. In MineZ, zombies are a big threat. If you're taking on a group of 3-4 solo, you're in for a battle, and your little wooden sword will probably be gone by the end of it. I learned early on that grouping up with even one more person increases your chances of survival by a considerable amount. Other people know this too, so grouping up with other kindly survivors is pretty easy to accomplish.

Banditry is also rampant in MineZ, so having a buddy along with you really helps increase survival chances. I remember we were rolling with a big group, and I got attacked. I ran back to the group, they noticed I was getting attacked, and they zerg'd the bandit. It was hilarious to watch, and he ran away as fast as he could. It was great.

The only problem MineZ runs into with groups is finding enough food. In DayZ, this isn't really a problem, so I think that if DayZ had a more identifiable "friendly" stance and harder zombies, we might see a little more player cooperation.

MineZ's weapons are naturally less threatening, promoting group play and easily identifying bandit intentions.

A lot of threads are popping up both around Reddit and on the DayZ forums promoting one idea: There's simply too many high-powered guns in the game. Right now, everyone and their mother has an assault rifle or sniper rifle, and if you don't, you probably have a high-powered sidearm. This makes relations with other players very uneasy, because if another player wants to kill you, they'll probably do it in one shot, without you seeing them.

This isn't the case in MineZ. The weapon with the most range is a bow and arrow, and you can clearly see if someone has one and is about to use it. Otherwise, bandits have to get up close and personal to dispense with you. You almost always have a chance to fight back, and bandits have to work for their kills.

DayZ has a lot to learn from MineZ in this respect. The rate of high-powered sniper rifles in DayZ is simply too damn high. In a zombie apocalypse, maybe ONE crazy individual is going to be perched somewhere with a DMR, picking off survivors. What you're NOT going to see is entire teams of ghillie-suited folks sitting on hills doing this. The resources wouldn't be that readily available in the real world, but in DayZ they are.

DayZ needs to tone down its high-powered military equipment, especially the long-range stuff. You can survive just as well with a Winchester and Makarov against Zeds as you would with a silenced M4 and G17. The military grade stuff seems to be there just to buff bandits, especially the sniper rifles. In MineZ, you'll be lucky to run across an Iron sword (The equivalent of an assault rifle), and it actually HELPS you against Zeds, not just players.

DayZ could learn from MineZ by severely increasing the rarity of military sniper rifles (CZ 550s and Lee Enfields becoming the norm for snipers), and decreasing the overall number of assault weapons. To help with the monotony, DayZ could add a few more low-tier weapons to its ranks, such as more melee and more "common household" firearms. I think this would help considerably to getting DayZ back to its roots, and feel more grounded without everyone running around with M4s and DMRs.

Bandits are easily identifiable by unique player skins and easy-to-read nametags.

I had a very fun time last night forming a rivalry with another player on MineZ. His name was Loborabo or something similar, and whenever we saw each other, it was time for battle. We formed this rivalry because we could instantly recognize each other, identify the other as hostile, and engage in combat.

In MineZ, identifying a bandit after they've killed you is very easy. It does this in a number of ways. First, player skins are very identifiable from a distance, and almost everyone is unique. Unlike the samey kind of look that everyone has in Arma II, this gives the player the immediate ability to say "Oh! That's that guy! KILL HIM!". This also gives that bandit a reputation.

MineZ also has the classic " Player X MURDERED Player Y!", but only at close range. These are not global broadcasts, only within a certain radius, where in real life you might notice the dying screams or gunshots of a murder in progress. If you round a corner and all of a sudden see Player X, then you can be extra cautious (In case it was self defense).

Also, MineZ does have player tags, but it's damn near impossible to see these player tags at range. This makes it so you don't have the DayZ problem of "Oh I just saw a player tag 1000m that way, let's have a look-see through my sniper. Oop! There he is! *bang...*

These systems in MineZ made keeping track of known bandits very easy, and avoiding them even easier. With nametags only visible at short range, unique player skins that easily identify who someone is, and very clear "X Killed Y" messages around you, banditry is a much more challenging art in MineZ than it is in DayZ.

It also doesn't hurt that MineZ doesn't have sniper rifles. Just sayin'.

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From my time with MineZ, it's a much more friendly and cooperative experience than DayZ. Yeah, you'll get some of those dicks that kill you for no reason, but more often than not, after exchanging a few crouches and wags of the sword, you'll get a buddy to help you through the apocalypse.

I think DayZ could really use to have a little more of that.

EDIT: Finally got it all formatted correctly.

Sounds good. Don't listen to all the braindead bandits on here who try to say every fucking change is "punishing them" somehow. Making zombies harder and weapons more rare would be for the best. After all, if every other citizen in this country has a gun lying around, why the fuck don't the only 50 people to survive the zombie apocalypse not have one to start with?

[jay.pis 32]

MineZ has a very clear "Friendly" stance that is easy to see and duplicate without compromising offensive ability.

You can salute or lower your weapon in DayZ, I think there is even a wave animation as well. I can spot a player from 600 meters away in a pretty open field and I'm not sure that trying to keep hidden is a bad thing, is it?

Grouping up has great benefits, while solo play isn't punished.

I don't see how grouping in MineZ is different from DayZ, zombies are more threatening, sure, but what does that have to do with players that just want to shoot other players?

MineZ's weapons are naturally less threatening, promoting group play and easily identifying bandit intentions.

How is having less threatening weapons any different from more threatening weapons? You can still use them to kill other players, can you not? That's like saying, "here don't use those AK's but use these swords instead"...okay so now they'll just kill each other with swords instead...

Bandits are easily identifiable by unique player skins and easy-to-read nametags.

Ok, sure, I wouldn't mind having some kind of a visual indicator to see if someone is a bandit or not. But I'd like to still stick to being able to see the visual indicator at a certain distance.

From my time with MineZ, it's a much more friendly and cooperative experience than DayZ. Yeah, you'll get some of those dicks that kill you for no reason, but more often than not, after exchanging a few crouches and wags of the sword, you'll get a buddy to help you through the apocalypse.

I think DayZ could really use to have a little more of that.

EDIT: Finally got it all formatted correctly.

You just mentioned it, there are still players that just kill for their enjoyment, so what's the difference? Every single feature is exactly the same but slightly toned down...

[peetgamer 10]

That's great, but everything you suggest has either already not worked or taken out because it compromised the game's core philosophy.

This!

[peetgamer 10]

How about you stop ignoring what I'm saying in my posts and actually listen.

If the game had started with very little military loot, nobody would be complaining that there isn't enough military loot. The only reason you're complaining about a possible lack of it is because you're used the abundance, and like I said in my post, you can survive just as well against Zombies with a Winchester as you can with an M4 or even the insane thermal/nv guns. Hell, you can probably PvP with them just as well too.

What you're telling me is that everyone having a DMR or M24 or whatnot is all "part of the design", and it's all "part of the design" that almost every death in the game is attributed to some unseen sniper 500m away killing you for shits and giggles. If that were the case, this game would just be called "Sniper deathmatch with loot". But it's not. It's DayZ, and it's supposed to be a zombie apocalypse survival sim. In a harsh world where resources are limited, and simply FINDING a gun would be a godsend...Everyone running around with ghillie suits and sniper rifles is NOT something that would be happening.

DayZ is just not for you go play minez you prolly be more happy anyway:)

[sandman120 0]

As someone who has dabbled in both, I have to say that many of the commenters here are being completely unreasonable. Here a few of the misconnections people have had about the OP:

"If you like MineZ so much then go play that."

-He specifically said that MineZ is terrible in his opinion (I disagree). He just pointed out there are some things that DayZ could learn from it.

-He is NOT saying take away sniper and high powered weapons. He simply wants them rarer, and more realistically distributed. There is a clear over abundance of military weapons.

-Many of you seem to think that your Skin changes in MineZ when you become a bandit. What he meant is that you can choose your unique skin and this goes a long way towards recognizing someone who attacked you earlier and remembering who your allies are. It makes much more sense, and is not a noob-friendly feature.

-The nametags can only be seen from so far away. They are like a hat, the size of the tag is relative to their distance away from you. And you cannot see the tag through structures.

-The stances in MineZ don't guarantee friendliness, there is still tension in who to trust.

-PvP is still very important in MineZ. In fact it is much more skill-based considering you have time to react and fight back.

Just wanted to clear up some of the OP's points, they are being pretty misconstrued and then viscously ripped apart.

I also found the "Calls someone a care bear .... Cries when his super gun is taken away" picture very appropriate for most people here.

Edited August 5, 2012 by sandman120

[Tracker (DayZ) 7]

The only thing I've gotten from this that I agree is charter customization.

[Lysander_of_Sparta 43]

It's not rocket's fault that so many people have snipers. It's mostly due to all those clans duping th weapons.

[Steamroller98 2]

I sort of agree, every server I join everyone but one player is shooting on sight besides a selected few. (usually one or two)

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

N-n-n-n-n-necro'd! Sorry Steamroller but I think it's fair to say the guy you just responded too might not be watching. The last post was nearly 9 months ago, don't worry, we all do it.

Locked.