The gear discussion

[FrostDMG 398]

First of all, I don't fully understand the "don't get attached to your gear" argument/the default reply of some people. I am aware this is alpha and bugs run rampant, but if look past all that, you will see that the gear attachment is similar to what happens in MMOs - people become attached to their characters.

So why do we become attached to our gear? For the most part getting high tier gear and weapons requires quite a substantial effort -.unless you manage to find a camp/kill a geared person.

Another thing is how high tier weapons give you a much higher survival chance vs zombies & players - things such as silencers and scoped rifles.

Lastly, gear is what motivates people to go North - military loot, crashed heli sites, barracks... If there was no loot there would be no point in exploring unless it's for the sake of exploring - lets leave the vehicles out of this discussion please.

[opticalshadow 27]

i become attached to certian weapons because i use them frequently. i learn the ins and out of their behaviour, the amount of time i have to reload, or how its scope works, for example, i love the einfield more then most guns in thie game. i like the look, ive hit targets upwards of 150-200m with this thing reliably, i cant shoot an ak to save my life though, i gave my kobra away to use this gun again.

when it comes to sniper rifles, m24 is where its at. i know its scope i know its temper. ill take the m24 over the 50 cals anyday.

maybe its sentiment, maybe its all mental. but tehre is just some gear i love having.

[Dagoth Wit 21]

Dying gives you a reason to get all that stuff over again. What are you doing once you're completely geared up? There isn't much TO do except for PvP. If you die, just try again.

It sucks when you die, but it ain't the end of the world.

[FrostDMG 398]

Dying gives you a reason to get all that stuff over again. What are you doing once you're completely geared up? There isn't much TO do except for PvP. If you die, just try again.

It sucks when you die, but it ain't the end of the world.

Yeah that seems to be one of the issues - lack of end game content

[daddycool 6]

I think people put themselves in the mindset of "not getting attached" to their gear so that when they do eventually die (and you will die), they do not become extremely butthurt. When I first started playing I would quit playing DayZ for a number of hours after dying with what I thought was good gear at the time. As you progress through the game and realize that you are not invincible, you do come to terms that you cannot get angry at this game because the same thing will keep happening, and you'll just keep coming back for more.

[Jack Dant 158]

"Don't get attached to your gear" is equivalent to EVE's mantra of "Don't fly what you can't afford to lose".

Whatever you have in DayZ, you are going to lose sooner or later. Maybe it will be to zombies, to other players or simply to the bone-crushing tree. Your vehicles will be stolen and your tents raided. Those are facts of DayZ.

Getting attached to it and expecting it to last forever is a recipe for dissapointment and rage. So expect to lose your stuff at any minute, and you will be pleasantly surprised most of the time.

[wolfgang784 13]

Yeah that seems to be one of the issues - lack of end game content

There is no endgame content, its a sandbox mod. YOU make the endgame content, whether it is by yourself or with friends. Rescue dead allies down in Cherno from all of the other people, recover a crashed vehicle in the middle of starry while fighting off the server hoppers in the military tents, help out dieing survivors in Cherno by becoming a field doctor of sorts, kill snipers to save the noobs, approach people and die repeatedly until you find one that doesn't kill on sight and chill. Teach them, play with them, talk for a while, whatever.

We have been playing this mod for two and a half months and have yet to run out of things to do. There is ALWAYS something happening or some goal to be reached. Our current goal is to find an SVD and satchel charges, the only weapons we have yet to touch. Also a rocket for the M136 so we can finally fire it.

As for the thread point, gear attachment,the general sentiments of the community on "don't get attached to your gear" comes from the large number of bugs. Using the MMO comparison, imagine if your character got deleted after a few days of play. You make a new one and it is deleted after several hours. The next one takes weeks before it is gone and was better than the rest. This continues on an irregular basis with no explanation or way to know how long you have. You would eventually become frustrated and quit most likely. The same is true for DayZ. All of your time and hard work is randomly deleted and eaten by bugs. If you become attached to your gear, your character, then you will feel that loss when it comes so much harder. If you become attached to each load out with each new character then after so many characters you will simply give up.

So basically you do not become attached to your gear if you plan on playing for a long time, because if you do the frustration will cause you to likely quit early on as so many already have.

[Tigger (DayZ) 24]

There is something positive in getting killed. The early game stages are way more rewarding than the later ones. You need a water bottle, matches, hatchet, knife, backpack, compass, handgun, beans, etc. etc. I got killed last night, was thinking about running 20 minutes to go get the essential stuff off my body but then I realized that starting in a different part of the map and searching for it all over is just way more fun.

[Jaime (DayZ) 13]

Having good gear makes me feel safer. It's an improvement over feeling weak and easy to kill. Then you find out that even with nice gear you can be dead in seconds. So now I actually get more attached to my map, matches, compass, hunting knife and hatchet than I do to NVG's and stuff like that.

I will look up and down Cherno, take crazy risks, kill heaps of players and zombies just for a map. I don't do that for high end weapons at all. :P

Edited July 17, 2012 by Jaime

[frankyes 6]

Sorry but I'm bringing vehicles into this discussion.

I've been a lucky dude. I've encountered a ton of vehicles. I've been the owner of a stolen bus.

I like submachine guns. I prefer an MP5(SD) over any sniper rifle in the game. I give almost all the weapons I fins to my teammates. So if I die I know I can find that gun pretty easy in NW and be on my way.

OK back to vehicles. I found a broken ATV and nursed that SOB to life. I found a heli crash right after I got it working. Now, its flipped on the dock. I would have wiggled it back over but it ran out of gas. I've waited before 4 - 5 server resets to get it flipped back over. Point of the story is I'm obsessed with getting my 90kph vehicle back to working. I only got to use it for an hour tops. Its been about 2 days that I've been watching it while its flipped.

I'm not attached to my gear.. just my ATV. Its a gateway drug. It'll take me to better things.