My thoughts on the mod

[Bosco 0]

I'm going to write a little essay on it, if you decide to read it then good for you.

So I come from the /v/ video game board on 4chan where I first heard about DayZ. Typically /v/ hates video games of all shapes and sizes, but there are some games that /v/ is passionate about in the other extreme where they get really worked up over something. Right now the flavour of the month is DayZ (to the point where people are buying ARMA 2 CO just to play), perhaps some of you may have noticed a steeper increase in players since the start-middle of the week. I jumped on board as well to give it a try, here's what I think.

At the start of this whole mass-migration people would post a lot of stories from in-game, all of these had the general theme of PvE survival. "Oh, I was in this town and low on ammo when I encountered this group of players and they were total bros", basically people were playing the mod like STALKER and all was good. Soon though the trend moved towards "I saw a player moving in the distance and I shot on sight because fuck being bros".

This outlines the big problem (or maybe it's not a problem but a deliberate design decision, I don't know) of the mod. It's not the PvP which is unbalanced or unfair, it's that the PvE isn't engaging enough to give people a reason to focus on it and cooperate. As it stands once you figure out a way around zombies and sneaking and using throwables the entire allure of PvE scavenging is the thrill of knowing that someone is going to try to engage in surprise PvP with you and so building your strategy around killing other players on sight.

I see what you're trying to do with the mod, create a persistent world where players will have to police themselves. I'm sure this will work out great on closed-off RP servers owned by clans, if they're the only niche you're trying to appeal to with this mod then you can stop reading here. If however you want the mod to have mass appeal (or the sort of "mass appeal" that vanilla ARMA has) I think you'll need to make some changes.

The game needs structure I'm afraid, there's no way around it. For the same reason ARMA has missions and objectives and isn't "let's put 1000 troops here and 1000 here and program them to hate each other and see what happens" you'll need to do something similar with the mod. If you drop a few dozen players into a big area with guns lying around and don't give them a defined end-goal it will turn into a free-for-all, either immediately or after the "I'll gather guns first and THEN kill people" delay. It's a glorified deathmatch at the moment when it can be something more. Look at games such as The Ship and Epic Mafia, they've managed to convey the feeling of paranoia and distrust while keeping some sort of structure in place by means of player roles and game rules, different players pursue different objectives and get awarded for those objectives while punished for others. Without these in place the only structure the game will have is the structure that comes from players metagaming (ie clanmates playing on a clan server and not shooting on sight because they're friends outside of the game).

A lot of games rely on metagaming and teaming up with real-life friends to have fun, that's not a design flaw. What is a design flaw though is making it so difficult to team up with friends. I tried playing it with a guy I know, we started off in totally different places, no matter how many times I tried respawning I wouldn't get anywhere even remotely close to the guy's position. I think something should be done about this.

The PvE component needs to be looked into as well, looting or killing zombies or building escape vehicles should give people a reason to cooperate. I can't imagine how this can be done unless actual objectives and missions are built into the game, but I'm sure there's a way to increase player interaction beyond shooting each other.

[Jeff (DayZ) 1]

That's kind of the point.

Zombies are... zombies. Your goal is to survive. Yes, people want more and better stuff, so they're going to kill you to take it.

Giving people a goal is a bad idea. That takes away from the Sandbox. What people need, and are getting, are more permanent tools. Ways to establish boundries and groups. But that will come in time.

[ghost_kage 5]

I agree with some of your points. I don't like the idea of giving players a goal. The goal here is to survive however long you can. All other missions or objectives are based on that, and therefore player controlled. For example:

-Your buddy needs painkillers so you and him are scavenging the houses to get some.

-You're out of water, so you need to get to the coast to fill up your canteen.

-You have no food, and don't want to risk entering the city so you go hunting.

The list goes on and on of possible 'goals', but in the end they all focus on some sort of survival. I do, however agree 100% with you that the PVE aspects need to be added to. I think that if players had more of an incentive to work together and cooperate, then they wouldn't mindlessly kill eachother as often. I don't think anything should be done to the PVP aspect, as its perfect they way it is. The bandit system could either be left in or taken out and it will be okay, however I do think it puts players who are good at defending themselves in a tight spot.

Perhaps a grouping or party system where you can't use friendly fire? I know some people would hate the idea, but at the same time I think it would allow more people to work together. If it were implemented they won't have to worry about their new partner shooting em' in the back of the head when their bandaging themselves. While unrealistic I think it would make people more willing to group up, but at the same time it changes the feel of the game.

I don't know though... With what the Devs have put out so far, I trust them to make the game better over time. They obviously know what they're doing.

[BlackAlpha 12]

I agree that the PvE is not engaging enough. But I guess this is because the mod is still in Alpha. I don't know what the roadmap is for this mod but I assume they will add more content to the PvE side of the mod.

I also agree that it's too hard to play in a team. I wish local voice would work, it would make things much easier.

[griffinz 2816]

I don't know what the roadmap is for this mod but I assume they will add more content to the PvE side of the mod.

Let's just say it's compatible with Arma 3...

[tpenn 9]

I agree with OP. For many players the initial goal was obvious "find stuff, don't die", but what happens when that's complete? I can see now why PK is ever-more on the rise.

Personally, I create goals for myself like "make it to this next city and hunker down", but after a while and after knowing what buildings are enterable, it's the same monotony because the goal is always static.

Since we can't spawn mission objectives, or dynamic environmental, and clearly since neither are dynamic enough by themselves, this is where missions come in: clear some city and make your way to the supermarket, or raid the military camp. All things players do already, but instead of exactly the same out come, at least missions can provide dynamic play throughs (objectives and loot can vary).

Idle minds will rot.

[pendelum5 0]

While the current gameplay has a relatively steep learning curve (which is good imo), once you figure out where stuff spawns the game just turns into game of camping rare item spawns across multiple servers, then using those items to kill people who try to stop you. Adding more valuable resources such as vehicles is good, but it won't help the current situation regarding "end-game" play.

(A) Resource Redundancy: Alternate methods of gaining resources could be used to balance out the gameplay. This could include specific and reliable spawn locations (eg. an out-house that spawns a hunting knife and matches every 10-30 minutes) placed near spawns, and others in more vulnerable, remote locations (eg. an isolated linebox with 15 zombies guarding it that spawns binoculars or night vision goggles every 2-3 hours). This would allow for a more organized and structured metagame concerning resources, so that players can actually learn from finding good loot.

(B) Hunter vs Hunted: The zombies themselves are rather harmless once you understand how to trick the AI. They could become more difficult (HP buffs, knockdown, damage, infection mechanic), or additional classes of zombies could be created that hold different attributes. (Resident Evil's Licker, Half-Life's Poison Zombie) They could have separate behavior patterns, like roaming, stalking, and retreating in response to player actions.

The bandit problem is manageable, the main problem with this game at the moment is spawns and how it affects the coordination efforts of teams as well as resource-gathering routes. Limit the spawn points to 3 or so clusters circling the SE corner of the map? It would certainly make respawning more bearable and help teams link up faster after somebody bites the dust.

I know these ideas are very unrelated, feel free to raise concerns about the viability of these solutions.