Some thoughts about the state of the game and future features

[davbru@gmail.com 7]

I’ve been putting together some thoughts about the game lately, and some things I would like to see or at least try, since this is still an experiment and I think I should share them.

I love the game but it has some serious short comings and most of the positives I feel come more from the open nature of the game, qualities that you would find in any open game, rather than specific qualities that make dayz stand on its own. You see this when you read all the stories and experiences people post around, all the role play, fun with friends, unexpected situations… It’s fantastic this is what I love about the game

Let me start with the premise of the game, a ruthless, kind of realistic zombie survival game, where you spawn with nothing, knowing nothing about the world, and you can lose everything in a matter of seconds, on a single mistake.

Great, but the truth is, that past the first few deaths this isn’t true anymore; it is a game, with simple mechanics. You learn where to loot, what to do, food, and water aren’t a problem, zombies are irrelevant, since they never get you if you run and you can lose the agro really easily once you understand how.

So what are we left with? Pvp

And to be more specific the main goal in pvp is to get a sniper rifle and kill people for fun.

I know, some will come and say this isn’t true, thank god some people play differently, but for a lot of people this is a fact. The sniper rifle is, considering the nature of the game, just the most powerful and useful weapon you can have.

While I like realistic games, I care more about realism or should I say immersion of the overall experience rather than in all the small details, and honestly in real life, the primary objective in a similar situation wouldn’t be to get a sniper rifle, go to hill near a town where unarmed people go to get their first gear and kill them for sport.

And this is another issue, gear spawns, maps are everywhere (online), check them once and you know how to raid elektro in 5 minutes and then have 0 problems on the survivability side… excluding pvp.

To make things worse you add in server hopping, not only during fire fights, but also to loot and hoard gear, check all the low populated servers and get everything you want with 0 efforts, then there guys are bored and start killing unarmed people on sight because they have nothing else to do, and they might come here complaining about the endgame content…

I’m for randomization of loot to some extent make people actually search, scavenge

I’m for extremely restrictive limits on disconnects/fast reconnections to servers

And I don’t think this is a detail you should leave for later, I feel it fundamentally change the way a lot of people play and it should be implemented as soon as possible, not just to make people happy, but to have a more solid base on which to go on with experiments…

I’m in favor of experimenting the game without sniper rifles, it’s boring, go on a hill, nearly invisible, safe, no zombies spawning around you, but they do spawn on who you are aiming at, in the cities, it’s like a flare giving away you position to all.

Without them kills on a long range would still be possible, but kills would be more risky, more tactical more about city layout knowledge, game mechanics experience, careful play, more risk for the rewards.

I know a lot will disagree, I’m not sure it would be a perfect or better thing in the long term, but personally I would like to try it at least.

Another thing I’d like, to expand a bit on the open world without changing fundamentally the game would be to use the bulletin boards I’ve seen around in some villages. Letting people write messages, temporary messages, say 2 weeks tops, and let it fade out after the first week, missing words, sentences… I’m sure interesting things would pop up, traps, lore, treasure hunts, threats, frustrations… give possibilities to players and amazing things will come out.

There is another point I’d like to see the game follow and expand on, is the bounty hunts threads you see in this forum and some other places. it’s really interesting.

But lets say I’m watching a supermarket in the game, from a distance, to see if it’s is safe to go, general movements around.

Say I see a cold blooded bandit killing unarmed players.

In real life I would be able to recognize him if I saw him again a few days later, in the game? Act now or forget.

I’d like to be able to tag people, put a "note" on them, if I see a friendly I’d like to tag him as such, a bandit the same, I’d like to be able to share the tags, like you would describe someone, you know: be careful of that guy with a scar on the face and a necklace of human bones.

I’d like to have those tags popup once that guy is in a visible distance, while still having no info about people you never seen, or cared to remember.

I know it isn’t realistic per se, but there are game limitations, everyone is the same in game, everyone is unique outside, it’s a way to get around to this short coming and add personality to the guys you meet.

It gives another reason for friendly people to meet and share details, and hunt bandits actively.

Then if you die you forget them, you start another life, as another survivor, it is another reason to stay alive, and forces you to really start over.

I say this because another issue is with death, not only you can loot what you need really fast, and even exploit the looting process, but a lot of people and groups just hoard an incredible amount of stuff, for a lot of people dying means only that they can look at the direction of their camp from the shore, put a weight on the forward key, and run 15mins while watching tv through perfectly safe forests…

This will only get worse I guess with all the underground base/cities possibilities that are planned, be less and less in a survivors game, lost stuff? Who cares, lets go to the bunker my clan built.

It makes sense, it is interesting to be able to say, start a camp, grow, try to go back to civilization and build stuff in real life, in the game, well, it really has to be balanced well, or it would really change the premise of the game, making the risk and reward, and death aspects totally irrelevant, so you need additional incentives to stay alive.

Some other quickies and obvious ones, that might not be feasible in the short run and on the arma2 engine, but while I’m at it why not:

-seasons would be cool

-better zombies, animations and more letal, i mean, now it is just to easy to ignore them and make them lose you.

-please have servers with higher view distance

-more places to loot/ larger map

-more random events, helicopters are a nice addition, the game needs more

-a revised inventory

-smoother movements, I’m looking at broken legs while prone, getting stuck if not perfectly straight while going through doors

-personally, though I think Rocket is immovable on his choice, I’d like sorter days, not short, but say 20, 18 hours days, why? A lot of people play always at the same hour every day, after work, and on the same servers if they have camps or whatever, so they always see the game in the same state, probably day time, since no one wants to play only during night time, with a slightly shorter day cycle you’d have the whole panorama offered by dayz, without sudden changes

Sorry about the wall of text :)

Edited July 19, 2012 by kepler

[EndEffeKt 87]

Very detailed and interessting Suggestions, you clearly get beans from me :) Not on the rifles though, but this tagging thing is miraclous. Lets turn this game a bit away from the killfest it is now

[Riiquiem 35]

It's an alpha... content isn't needed so far, just a ton of bugfixes.

After that you can come up with ideas to expand the game. That zombie apocalypse setting thingy is nice but since they are no threat at all it's kinda pointless.

The only reason why I need zombies in this game is to spot other players, victims.

PVP is the only thrill in this game and it's very exciting once you gained some skill and experience... don't know why everyone's so upset and whining.

That's definitely a learn to play issue, nothing else.

[davbru@gmail.com 7]

i'm glad there is pvp in the game too, what i was saying is just that, well since the game is still developping, they still want to try new things, do it, even radical.

obviously if to kill a guy you can't do it from the hill 2km away but you need to track him in the city, get him from a closer range, and then deal with the dozen of zombies that hear your shoot, and you can't just disconnect instantly to safety, nor going in a random house and magically lose agro on all of them, then the balance is totally different, so is your decision process.

i'm not saying this would be certainly better, but i would give it a go, try and see

to put in another way, any incentive to be even more prudent and less reckless would be something to investigate as far as i'm concerned

Edited July 19, 2012 by kepler

[Chimaera 68]

PvP is not the only thing in the world you know..

Yes it will always be present as in the real world scenario of this game but it must not be the only thing.

If it was the way this game went i would get completely bored and go find something else to do.

I mean sitting on a hill top and waiting for hours for some poor noob who has nothing to wander into view... really ...

yes i will engage if threatened and have killed a few over the time ive played but i dont sit and wait for them.

I can under stand sniper stuff i love those kind of games but the body has to have something i want, killing a noob for a bandage which your not going to bother getting makes you and idiot imho

Anyway back on topic

Some good ideas and some that have already been thrashed around

I actually think the "game" when it happens will be radicallly different to this alpha, but we shall see.

[Flambo (DayZ) 50]

It's an alpha... content isn't needed so far, just a ton of bugfixes.

It's an Alpha, everything is needed. Add features, remove features, put old features back. Tweak numbers, redesign levels. You make it sound like the game is feature complete, and all Rocket needs to do is fix some bugs so he can put a sticker on it and call it a finished product.

That zombie apocalypse setting thingy is nice but since they are no threat at all it's kinda pointless.

It's seriously alarming how common this reply is. Someone suggests how the game could be improved, and the response is "there's no point in improving it since it's already bad". When someone breaks their arm, do you tell them "No point in going to a doctor, your arm's broken"?

The only reason why I need zombies in this game is to spot other players, victims.

The community knows this. That's why you keep reading suggestions about how to make zombies more than just target indicators. This is supposed to be a survival horror game with pvp, but right now, after your first few hours it's only pvp. There is no survival or horror. You could replace the current zombies with cute fairies that stick to players and make giggling noises, and the gameplay would scarcely be affected because, as you accurately point out, zombies really only serve to give away the locations of other players.

PVP is the only thrill in this game and it's very exciting once you gained some skill and experience... don't know why everyone's so upset and whining.

Nobody is whining here. Every time there's a constructive post about new features that would give players something else to do besides rack up a killstreak, they're accused of being whiners. Give it a rest.

You started off your post by saying that this is an alpha, but I'll say it again: this is an alpha. You, along with everyone here, is a tester. Your job here is not to top the leaderboards; you are here to test, report bugs, and make suggestions. Being in alpha doesn't just mean that you should have low expectations and prepare for bugs. It means that everything about the game is being evaluated, and any feature of the game can be changed at any time.

[EndEffeKt 87]

PVP is the only thrill in this game and it's very exciting once you gained some skill and experience... don't know why everyone's so upset and whining.

That's definitely a learn to play issue, nothing else.

People like me are upset, because they have the wish, that this game could offer some really exciting things. PvP is a key-factor in this game, but not this boring kill-on-sight shit goin on right now. Damn it I am more than capable of shooting some players in a videogame. Why is any random badass here thinking, that people are upset because they lack the skill? We lack the interesst in a pure deathmatch game.

Please keep your useless "get skill and experience" once and for all. Every nooblet can shoot random guys with a sniperrifle, I just decided that this is not the game I want to play. And so did some others. Thanks

Edited July 19, 2012 by EndEffeKt