Suggestions for the DayZ standalone - thinking outside of the limitations of an Arma 2 mod.

[scypheroth 13]

fix all the issues first why bother brainstorming ideas for a broken game that is unplayable...like beating a dead horse with astick

[3rdparty 229]

fix all the issues first why bother brainstorming ideas for a broken game that is unplayable...like beating a dead horse with astick

I like beating dead horses :(

Control Old Industry! Itd be sick if you could reclaim old industrial processes. Would give incentives for prolonged group activities, occupying and claiming built up areas (and essentially create player designed safe zones), establishes and ties groups down to servers, aswell as a production pay-off that could be used a source of power for your group to either bargain or war with others on the server.

Not to mention this is all player driven.

[Eccentric 15]

1. Throwing grenades at the moment is the worst of the worst. It takes forver to throw a flare/can/grenade/chemlight and you get "stuck" for a while after throwing it. It makes it very hard to throw a grenade at short range and avoid getting hit yourself. This should be fixed, so that you can move more freely while throwing items.

2. NPCquests with multiple choice. Lets say that a couple appear from nowhere. They ask you to save their 5 year old son trapped in a car. If you help them, they will reward you with some spare water or ammo. You can do the right thing and complete their quest, by either getting the boy out with help of a toolbox or a crowbar. But you can do it the messy way, shoot the parents and grab the water and ammo anyway. Whatever choice you make, it will inflict your humanity throughout the game.

[DeadManWalking2 27]

ooh i like this one. Can a user be able to hold all these maps at once or would they have to drop a previous map to get new map? If all can be held, make user have to swap back and forth through maps to figure out were exactly they need to go. Ex. User has just a normal map that shows more roads, forest etc, but only so much. you then find a military map that shows the map without roads ,etc and just shows landmarks (like a airport) that you have to then switch to your other map (normal) to figure out where it is at. If you didnt have the normal map you wouldn't know cities are near the camp so if you came into a city without a normal map you couldn't verify you were close nor what direction you were heading and would cause you to explore ALOT

OR as you collect more maps it will populate your original map to see more of the map / landmarks?

I think it would be easiest if you simply traded upwards till you got the military map. However you give me another idea.

Military sometimes hide the location of a weapons cashe by using a small piece of tracing paper. trace elements of the map onto the paper and then put an x to mark the spot. this way you can only find the cashe if you have the same map (military map) and can locate where to put the piece of paper so that it matches.

[garglemouth64@yahoo.com 11]

The mockup UI must have confused me earlier, I thought this was some huge thread announcing Rocket's work on the Standalone or something. Damn.

[tsmhicks 52]

fix all the issues first why bother brainstorming ideas for a broken game that is unplayable...like beating a dead horse with astick

This is a discussion for the Standalone not the mod. Most if not ALL issue of the mod will be addressed and taken care of in the stand alone as he doesn't have to do all the massive modding to the arma2 engine, he gets the arma3 engine and a full team to work on standalone. So you sir didn't read thread :D

[boatie 34]

This is a discussion for the Standalone not the mod. Most if not ALL issue of the mod will be addressed and taken care of in the stand alone as he doesn't have to do all the massive modding to the arma2 engine, he gets the arma3 engine and a full team to work on standalone. So you sir didn't read thread :D

I very much doubt that all the currently broken features will be fixed but the time of the standalone. That's why they should approach adding stuff very cautiously. The recent updates and their new features did a very effective job of killing this mod. 1.7.2.5 is not nearly as enjoyable a game as 1.7. Right now, you have to expect that you will get killed by hackers, dupers, hopers, etc. rather than have a good game session.

Edited August 22, 2012 by boatie

[ShaneGT 41]

Large Urban map, for example: Downtown Atlanta or Manhattan Island. Gives players a way to survive in urban areas, not just wooded areas with towns here and there.

[tsmhicks 52]

I very much doubt that all the currently broken features will be fixed but the time of the standalone. That's why they should approach adding stuff very cautiously. The recent updates and their new features did a very effective job of killing this mod. 1.7.2.5 is not nearly as enjoyable a game as 1.7. Right now, you have to expect that you will get killed by hackers, dupers, hopers, etc. rather than have a good game session.

Standalone wont have the massive limitations that the mod has at this moment as it is based on a 4 year old engine that LOVES scripts. Also hacking will be greatly smashed greatly as the standalone wont be able to be scripted (as that how everyone is hacking .ARMA2 is just a massive script so injecting scripts is as easy as putting on your shoe. Standalone wont allow scripting so SKs will have to buy their hacks, which most dont.). Duping is just a aram2 engine limitation that the standalone will be able ot fix easily. Server hoping and slight hacking will all you will have to worry about = normal

[GlaciusTS 7]

I like the idea of bases and barracading, but I think this should be a huge focus. We should have multiple options to customize our bases by using items we find and such.

Maybe we can weld a door shut if we find something to weld with, and use ladders to climb in and out of windows instead. If we don't want bandits entering our home, fortify the whole building and use rope ladders that we only lower for our own people to enter. If they try to break throught the walls, set of a siren and/or send up fireworks to signal other groups and/or zombies to our fortified base to keep the bandits hands full while we try to pick them off. Maybe even give us the ability to dig trenches and set of fences and such. But we should have to find the materials to do these things over time. This would be the benefit of larger groups. Also, we should be able to stock vehicles with extra supplies. Large trucks could store more large materials than a small car.

[Bat (DayZ) 230]

here's some ideas :

What features for an official dayz map :

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/19931-what-features-for-an-official-dayz-map/

Zeds' biological rythm :

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/18216-zeds-biological-rythm/

[LookitsDante 1]

here's some ideas :

What features for an official dayz map :

http://dayzmod.com/f...icial-dayz-map/

Zeds' biological rythm :

http://dayzmod.com/f...ological-rythm/

I would like to see the sleep one. For both the players and Zombies, maybe even something like insomnia kicking in as player is forced into high stress senerios more and more, eventually causing dregration with the responsiveness even senses (vision reduced, earing reduced) as they don't sleep or no longer get the warnings they need to sleep.

For the zeds, the same thing, only something like hyper sensitivity for the ones who are still awake past 2am, making them even more dangerous, possibly even waking the horde when they rush you.

[NinjaJake 22]

Hey Rocket! You said you're reading this thread, so I'll dump this here.

My only contribution to the mod so far has been the Heli grief vid that was on kotaku, but id like to do more.

I'm wondering what kind of atmosphere you are looking to establish with background clues like the body piles and etc. I feel that if you want some things that would give chills or make players say "Holy fuck" then me and the community could contribute some twisted shit.

Ex: Player enters a house and sees a decomposing body in a made bed, with a dead body in the corner of the room. the body in the corner has a note on it that reads "She didn't deserve to see what this world will become." You can loot the body's pistol that was used to commit the act or leave it.

Things like that, along with something like hearing faint children's laughter when you go near a school, or faint screams, fire, gunshots, and death wails around those mass graves (Enough that would make players realize its atmospheric, and would be faded immediately in favor of local gunshots or zombie groans) would remind players that they're in a dead world with a horrific story and not a zombie deathmatch.

Thats one of the reasons I liked the numbers station video. "We are no longer alive STOPMESSAGE This will be played once per hour if operators are unresponsive STOPMESSAGE" sent chills up my spine.

Hope to hear back!

Edited August 22, 2012 by NinjaJake

[Gibbo3771 1]

Lots of nice suggestions. Infact they are fasntastic, I think that inventory system is amazing....the idea of having space there and everything taking up a certain space it means packing the bag properly adds realism cause if you dont manage your stuff it wont fit it, ever tried chucking clothes in a drawer? you realise when your wife done it the 15 tops and trousers fitted no problem :P

I just hope the dev/team listens but tbh if the standalone alpha is anything like the mod alpha, as in has trouble working 50% of the time due to loading screen hangs, random items disappearing, you know those MAJOR GAMEBREAKING bugs that would take the average game/mod developer 3 days to figure out, sometimes same day it is discovered.

I know the game is in alpha but I wouldnt even say when it was released that it was remotely ready for it, or maybe it was ready and lots of other code has been chucked in since then, ignoring the major gamebreaking bugs and burying them deeper.

[DeadManWalking2 27]

I'm surprised this hasn't been added to the common suggestions section at the beginning of this topic. It's suggested enough times. so I'll add it here just to be sure.

(short version)

make sniping harder and more realistic.. and harder. It's not right that noobs must learn how to avaide an unseen enemy half the map away, while the sniper densest have to learn a thing and merely pepper the target till it stops moving. Never once having to adjust the scope for wind or indeed anything other than distance. Also because the survivors are supposed to be civilians and not highly trained military sharp shooters, the accuracy of the sniper guns should be significantly lowered to take this into account. hands up who knows how to properly steady a sniper rifle (It's harder than you think)

at the very LEAST the scope should weave around the screen as the untrained survivor fails to keep the rifle deathly still. forcing the sniper to take carefully timed and considered shots.

Edited August 22, 2012 by DeadManWalking2

[myskaal 50]

• More broken vehicles, less vehicle parts, scarce fuel
  
• Less high powered/military weapons, more "around the house" type weapons (though still difficult to find - hello apocalypse) + degradation + scarce ammo.
  
• Searchable/lootable items inside buildings: chests, wardrobes, desks, nightstands, safes... you know like at some point in the not too distant past people actually lived in these places.
  
• I like the idea of underground building but I would like to see this underground be an actual place - like a subway and sewer system. Underground tunnels and stations, rather than just some empty instance you load into and create a base in. Example: You drop through a manhole and make your way through the tunnels to your base entrance (instance). **ASA WELL AS - the ability to dig into the ground/mountains.
  
• With the creating of bases, I'd love to see the inclusion of being able to create amenities such as electricity - to light/heat/arm said bases.
  Water filtration systems. Cooking appliances/facilities beyond a simple camp fire... I mean this all depends how far into the "rebuild civilization" part of it you want to go.
  
• Stamina/Endurance/Agility/Dexterity(aim) directly related to and affected by hydration/fed/temperature/health level.
  
• Animals - dangerous wildlife.
  
• Fishing - another food source
  
• Infected population independent of players. It's too much of a giveaway: zambies here means player here.
  
• The diary/note creation
  
• Enter-able tents: out in the wilderness, have my tent in my pack, starts raining. I'd like to be able to set my tent up and climb inside to get out of the rain.
  
• "Friend" identification. If I'm looking at my team mate "Joe", I'd like to be able to tell that it's "Joe" and not the other random guy that has the exact same skin/equipment who just happened to come around the corner. Maybe some sort of customizable clothing flag - armband, hat decal, bandana... something.
  
• EASTER EGGS (What could be at Green Mountain? hmmmm)
  

Edited August 22, 2012 by EliJRn

[quatermass 9]

Personally the stand alone version should have a random generated player who is either male or female, of a varied age and has running and tiring parameters,

So if they're a fat man/woman they can't run very fast or far. If they're thin then they need to eat more?

If they're only 10 years old then they're also slower and we get a new point of view as well.

This will help keep the game fresh when played again.

I'd like a Dayz with hardly any ammo at all. This would encourage players to save their ammo... Guns and ammo are far too plentiful at present...

How about a scenario where there is only x number of ammo/food items on the map? So the players have to 'really' search for them.

Once the food gets scarce, they have to hunt animals... maybe this could lead to cannibalism?

People are trading in Dayz which is a surprise.Some are even getting into groups to do positive things like helping other people out.

Don't have random spawning items throughout the game at all. Set up the items at game start then make people have to find stuff, rather than simply waiting near a house until the item they want is spawned!

The forests and woods are not dangerous at all at present. So how about some really wild animals or even Zombies in there?

Can we have the ability to have Zombie hordes? Or board up a house using old wood planks, etc.?

Variety is the key to the success of any game. Minecraft is successful because it keeps changing and keeping fresh. So offer lots of variety throughout the game life. Maybe offer a prize of 'best zombie' and put the person's characterture in the game as the prize every couple of months? Add items designed by open source developers? Then offer the updated map and objects to all...You could make these items country specific so someone in the UK sees local foods and a person from USA sees a different but similar item. That'll keep the player interested.

Goals in the standalone could be -

Find a person (a Bot) and rescue them. Get off the island by constructing/repairing a raft/boat...

Have certain buildings with Bots in them firing on passers-by? Player has choice of ignoring the area or going in and recovering loot..

If you keep it such that the player is left to decide for themselves if they want to be a bandit or a hero, to help or hinder each other and not force behaviour upon them, and keep players finding new items then you'll do ok. :)

[antrax0 8]

• Randomize loot spawns, make the online loot maps as useless as possible.
  
• Hide number of current players at the server, so you don´t know if there are 5, 10, or 40 players.
  
• If a player is killed by a zombie, his dead body turns into a zombie (npc), carrying his stuff, you hill him, you loot him.
  
• Make weight important (speed, thirsty, hungry)
  

[padla 19]

A detail regarding possible tripwire traps.

Could it be possible to trap an enemy's body with a grenade? And how long would a dead body stay in the game? Would the timer still be 15 minutes if a dead body could be "used" by survivors to plant notes, or tripwire them?

[Frostbyte_ 44]

..., I think the "REVISED HEALTH, STATUS & WOUNDING SYSTEM" is a bit excessive, especially considering that the last thing a player wants to do is maintain his/her pixelated body. Demarcating foods into sugars and carbohydrates is superfluous (last thing we want to do follow an Atkins diet; besides, Hall already made it clear the game's not focused on survival). The vital organs idea is also redundant, getting shot anywhere on the body with a large-caliber bullet would outright kill someone. The loss of limbs may as well be left out as it's essentially a killshot to amputate any of the appendages--arguably even more detrimental than being shot in the gut. If your ideas were implemented, we would get a game like Unreal World, a single player survival game that's intensely taxing on the player to begin with, but then you would have to deal with survivalism and players that are out to hunt you....

Health.

Lets be healthy, drink a lot of water, watch what you eat and go to gym LOL.

Health system as it is posted here seems too much. If it would have all that it would become frustrating, too realistic and just unplayable. I do like how there would be some diseases like a cold or fever, but that's as far as i would go. Having some life threatening diseases would need you to either team up with someone who could get you necessary stuff or you could just die from it because you are in no shape to get your supplies. And seriously this whole energy thing is load of crap. It would complicate things too much and honestly, you are in a period of apocalypse, if you're hungry you don't have time to watch what will give you more energy or whatever. Also the whole organs thing is also too much. Its like saying don't drink the most found drink in the game (sodas) because your liver will fail after some time.

Wounds system seems good but as you said it it makes it too complicate. It would be nice to see it ingame but you should be able to heal your wounds on some easier way and shouldn't be like you could lose your limb (game over). Bruise is useless because if you have a bruise on lets say your leg because somehow you were clumsy ingame and you bumped yourself somewhere (oh god imagine that), even if you have one the pain wont last more than some 5-10 minutes, unless you were so unlucky ingame that your whole leg is blue because you are one big clumsy idiot.

You basically made 90% of your inventory only medical supplies because you never know if you gonna bump yourself somewhere or catch a cold or lose a limb....

Health system should be separated from blood but blood amount should depend on your health. For example, 12000 blood = 100% health, if your blood level drops real bad to lets say 4000 or less, your health starts to decrease slowly and you need to find some way to get your blood back to normal level.

TL;DR

Most of the OP stuff is good but health is too complicated.

Thank you for making the same point i´m about to make, hopefuly it doesn´t go unnoticed.

I just made a thread with some suggestions. Didn't see this one. Here are my suggestions.

I have ideas and all of them together make sense in my head, I don't know how it is going to turn out here though :P

AID STATION.

I want player built aid stations that will heal you of all ailments (after a certain amount of time). They would work by you entering one at the end of your play session and logging out. After 12 hours (or however many) you would be 100% ok. If you come back after 6 hours and leave, then you'd be much better off than before, but If you don't take care of yoursel you will deteriorate.

The aid station will also be able to quickly patch you up and send you on your way. Of course the station would be stocked with loot found by the players who 'own' it and more advanced medical gear and machinery will improve healing speed and success.

Getting a quick fix at the aid station will be better than doing it yourself or someone else doing it in the field.

Damage & Treatment.

If you get more serious wounds like gunshots then you would be able to stop the bleeding and bandage the wounds but that wouldn't mean that you are ok. You would have to clean and redress the wound after every X hours (depending on time of year, temperature, climate etc.). This would not be indicated on the hud that you have to do it. After every redressing of the wound the needed time interval should start increasing a little. After Y number of treatments you should be completely healed.

The wound treatment interval would be dependent on time played not real world hours, as opposed to the aid station.

If you fail to redress and clean the wound it can become infected (fevers-visual distortions indicating it) and you would need to take antibiotics (with x hour intervals) and clean the wound more often and more times (2*Y times). If you fail to take care of yourself then you die. You can go to an aid station to get yourself healed and avoid all this.

Diseases.

More diseases with different debilitating effects. Basically different diseases that need different medicine and treatment that takes time (anti biotics every x hours y times, whatever). Go to an aid station to get healed.

Medical Evacuation.

If someone gets seriously fucked up and there is no way that they can be treated in the field and would die, but are not dead yet (state determined by the game), then the patient can be stabilized and carried/driven/dragged/air lifted into an aid station to get fixed.

They might die en route and the longer it takes, the better the equipment and skills of the person who initially patched them up, the higher/lower is the chance for the person to die en route. Also the longer it takes to get to the aid station and the worse equipped the aid station is the higher is the chance for the person to die during the 12 hours it takes to get people fixed.

! While this might seem pretty pointless, it will play in with my idea of aquired perks and stat boosts that you lose upon death. I will be making that thread shortly and link it here.

NPC Doctors and Surgeons at aid stations.

I don't know how yet, but you can get doctors, nurses and surgeons into your aid station. The longer the NPC's have been there and dealt with specific types of wounds/diseases whatever, the better they would become. All this would increase the chances of sucessful treatment and reduce the time for fully fixing someone.

The medical staff would need to be fed and they have to have living quarters. When your base gets bigger and it is safe for them to go outside and frolic in the sunshine, then they'll be happier and even more better at their jobs. Eventually your aid station will have so much room, equipment, doctors that it will allow them to work in shifts, increasing their effectiveness yet again.

NPCs can be killed by zombies, yourself and enemy infiltrators or whoever wishes to do it.

Bonus idea.

Have you been running? Have you been wearing shitty or worn footwear? Well congratulations! Blisters! Bandage your feet/get to an aid station and find something better to wear.

It would be fucking crazy (and great) if people were killing eachother for a pair of shoes.

Perks and stat boosts.

You can find rare perk giving trinkets that you can adorn yourself with. They should look cool and the bonuses shouldn't be too big. If you decide to unequip a trinket then it will be destroyed. Trinkets should have certain slots so that you can't stack their effects. The trinkets will not be recoverable upon death.

You should get perks after you have done something a certain number of times (zombie, survivor, bandit kills for example). The perks can also be negative.

Faaar too comlicated. And in my opinion conflicts with the general feel of the game. It´s you who is surviving there with other people in the same exact situation. You do the decisions, you do the surviving. Players can help, but they can betray you too. That´s just part of the surviving. If we add npc help into that , it´s not you anymore. there´s a certain kind of a safety net you can fall into if you face trouble. A force that´s simple and benevolent and not you. In this case, adding npc care teams takes away from the authenticity of the survival experience to cater for dull realism.

Also this seriously shifts the game towards sending a message that loners are not welcome. Leaving them to depend on good will of others after a fight. As far as i´ve understood devs really want us to be able to effectively play the way we want.

The game is certainly about survival. The word survive/survival/survivor appears four times just on the dayzmod.com first page. Although I would probably agree that the realism side of it could be taken too far.

Yeah, a 50.cal and probably an AK would kill anyone but 5.56mm often passes straight through. When firing 9mm pistol rounds it would be pretty important to hit something vital. As for the loss of limbs, I was thinking of it more for the zombies than players.

I think items should have varying degrees of condition of repair, not just limited to boots. The condition of an item would be an important consideration in any survival situation and yes, this would give an incentive to continually scavenge.

Technicaly the higher caliber bullets are the ones that go straight through (leaving big holes). 5.56 actualy has bit of an habit of changing trajectory inside the body. But that´s just nitpicking.

On to my point, let´s talk medical shit.

First of all, let´s throw the realism bullshit out of the window, since in reality one bullet would most propably incapacitate you for days if not for weeks, and certainly you´d be in no condition to fight in battles or survive extreme conditions for months...happy time trying to sell a game in which after one hit you have to leave it on for a week to get better and play again.

Secondly, we propably should let the people play the game rather than the mechanics. but allow me to expand on that later.

Now then, diseases. My opinion is that one is enough, possibly two. "But in reality there´s millions of diseases and conditions and stuff, we have to add more!" cry the realism fans. Nay, say i. No we shouldn´t. Reason being that it doens´t add anything to the experience. Experience i´m talking about here is the feeling that you´re surviving, day by day, trying to carve you´re way through post-apocalyptic world where any day could be your last. What difference would it make wether you suffer from Tonsillitis or severe case of common flu? You would just take general antibiotics and hope for the best anyhow, since you couldn´t accurately diagnose, nor would there be any professional help to do it for you. "Then what about uncurable diseases, viral infections, and rare conditions or or..." hold it right there. No, they wouldn´t add anything either. As i said before, the game is about surviving not watching your character suffer and die a slow death from cancer or hogwartian yellowspot fewer. And remind me again of what was the average life expectancy in game? There´s not even time to worry about anyhting but immediate threats.

But then, why have any diseases at all, if multitude of them, each with their own quirky treatment plan, wouldn´t add to the game. Because having to worry about catching one from being cold or fighting nearly dead people does add to the overall feeling of surviving. Little part of you would always be worried about it and that would add to the experience. Like i said before, it doens´t matter what exact disease it is, you wouldn´t think of anyhing that trivial anyway, so having that one general unkown disease is enough,especialy since for most part that would be accurate protrayal of the situtation as people wouldn´t really know what they have, only that they´re not ok. About the effects though, that´s all up to debate. Should it be at sometimes more severe than at others, wether it should affect stamina, or make you cough loudly like it does now. Or if it should prgress from coughing to more debilating effects like hallucinations and passing out. My own opinion is coughing at first and if untreated, decreased stamina/running speed/ what ever mechanic portrays bad general condition and in severe case hallucinations.

And then the disease number two? Food poisoning from raw meat and other not quite edible things...just becaus i want to be able to eat raw meat (damn you boxes of matches, why do you so avoid me?!). Curable with the same general antibiotics mentioned above. Symptoms being vomiting and/or faster food consumption.

Now if we really want to add more complexity, we could add few types of antibiotics, for example common pills and better/faster/something autoinjector type deal. And if we want to speculate on traits/perks maybe somekind of a medic/pharmacist one that makes drug work faster (you know, them knowing how to pick right drug for right disease etc.

Above all, the system would be intuitive. You get sick, you find drugs, if it doesn´t work, you get more advanced drugs and someone better to help you.

Onwards to actual wounds.

"Different kinds of wounds, sracthes and brusies for all the ladies an gents here in chern......!" Nope, i´m not convinved that even those will add to the game,since they all basicly provide for the same basic threath in your surviving experience. Threath of getting wounded and how to deal with it. Here´s why. First of all, any wound received in the setting we´re playing in is essentialy dirty one, and will most propably be inflamed if not treated. doesn´t matter if it´s bite, slash or bullet wound. Then what about vital organs and stuff...nope, uncurable in the setting and like said before, this game is about surviving not dying slowly while you can´t do anything. And once again, normal person wouldn´t stop to study his wounds and form a long term treatment plan, it would be more of a holy shit there´s lots of blood disinfect and bandage that shit quick type of a deal. But the current mechanism truly is bit of a boring one, bandage and you´re done. So it does need some complexity. All the types of wounds mentioned before are practicaly the same, they have a chance of bleeding a lot, are prone to being infected and can be not too serious too. You would treat them all similiarly enough, stop the bleeding and avoid inflammation...so we basicly only need two types of wounds, minor and major. Minor ones would be the normal bandage it up, low chance of infection. Major ones on the other hand, could serve us in making the system more complex. Bandage it up for a time, and it starts bleeding through the bandages. So basicly buy some time with first-aid and get it treated properly afterwards. Naturaly higher chance of infection, going ever higher the longer it goes untreated.

Well treatment then, how to go about that. Like previously established, with minor wound it´s easy, bandages are the answer. Major wound though, there´s multiple choices here. We could introduce advanced med-kits which can be used to sew up the wounds(with loooooong animation of doing so). We could make players change the bandages every so often. We could add hemostats to deal with it instantly, we could add cauterizing....or we could just do them all or some of them. Basicly just some more steps for treating serious wounds, without adding arbitrary mechanics. Maybe option to remove foreign objects with advanced tools, but nothing more complicated than that...and even there´s the problem of how do we indicate it within game where you might be in 1st perso all the time...more gui elements aren´t the answer, they often just clutter the screen.

And after the bleeding hassle, we would need to deal with the infection part of the deal. Multiple means of disinfection would be nice, but let´s not go with more is better route with this either. Salves, sprays liquids are all essentialy the same, items that disinfect wounds. Maybe if they were added as items that had different amounts of uses, but othern than that they could as well be a single item. Cauterizing with hot iron, rough but maybe within reasonable. But what would come from not treating the infection...you would get sick (actualy you´d maybe lose the limb but that falls again under the part of the game not being about suffering but surviving). Sickness stuff was already handled above, no point in adding multiple of them, so basicly you´d get a severe version of "the disease" if you can´t disinfect in time.

Again all would be simple and intuitive, no arbitrary hunt for bite wound dressings. You´re bleeding , bandage it up. it didn´t work? find better tools sew it up, burn it close or stuff it with hemostat. Danger of infection is ever present so at some point, remember to disinfect the wounds.

All the way i was talking how the wounds are similiar, but now i finaly say that they aren´t...confusing eh. Well wounds can be different indeed, it´s just that treating them is not. The game could as well have different kind of modifiers for different wounds, but that wouldn´t have to affect players in any arbitrary way like minorly different kind of a treatment. Example, zombie bites are dirtier wounds than knife slashes. Game can just make those wounds have higher chance of infection, or infection occuring faster if not treated.

Players will understand that zombie bites are dirty (even if there´s no way of knowing the mechanics behind it), they will know they can disinfect wounds, chances are they will act accordingly without them having to browse wiki for which of the 42 antibacterial solutions they should use (something average people wouldn´t indeed even know in the situation) similiarly, if they get minor knife wound, they can relax bit longer or maybe trust being lucky if in a bad situation.

Burn wounds...now here´s something sufficiently different...but meh, still kinda not. True you would treat them with different kind of dressings and some lotions/ointments, but is that enough to justify for them to appear in game. And where would you get them from? If they add molotovs, or napalm...maybe then, but as of now, not worth it. In time, maybe yes, wound type that wouldn´t bleed but would add higher chance of contacting the disease mentioned above if not treated with dressing and ointment. but still, i´m not sure it would add enough for it to be in.

if again we want to wade into perks/skills speculation, maybe we could indeed add more complex systems for those who choose to do so with reward being faster/more certain treatment. Nothing gamebreaking i hope, we don´t want to end up in situation where players feel forced to choose some arbitrary mechanic.

On a side note, what´s with all the bullet gouging? It usualy isn´t the bullet that poses the threath of infecting the wound, it´s all the other things that happen when it enters. There´s tons of war veterans and people with shrapnel or indeed even bullets still inside, there´s no particular need to get the bullet out fast nor at all in some cases. So i don´t think the bullet fishing minigame many people seem keen on is going to be realistic..sigh...i made that argument...nor that it would add to game (maybe through the optional perk thingy i described...)

Fractures then, here´s somtehing that isn´t too far fetched in the original suggestion. As it is now (morphine to deal with it) it´s kinda weird and indeed having mechanism like having to build a splint or maybe aquiring a cast from hospital later on would be very beneficial. If you in reality break a leg, what will you do? Overdose with painkillers and walk to hospital or make a splint?

How to handle it mechanicaly is whole another issue though, what penalties should splinted players have, how does cast improve it, how long should it last etc. Maybe a limbing animation and slowed speed for people with splint. Slightly faster and less limb with cast. pain killers might help, and morphine even more so.

Limbloss though, again makes you not survive, and that´s a no no in my books.

Onwards to painkillers, and morphine, and good stuffs....Well yeah, as said before these really aren´t treatments to any particular wounds or ailments. So why not make them affect most situations like in reality? Most wounds make you be in pain, let´s say we have to classes for it. "Shit, this hurts", and " kill...me...please" We can make different wounds have either of those two, and both types of our existing pain relief be actualy effective. Let´s say you get shot.... a lot, manage to survive, bandage yourself up, get the wounds sewn up, avoid infection but you´re still with kill me now amounts of pain, your aim shakes like hell, your screen shifts from pitch black through normal to bloom overload and back, you finaly figure your character is in pain...you happen to have painkilers with you. One could say that painkillers wouldn´t be enough for that amount of pain but anything helps right? And it indeed does, you get some relief, but your i´m stil shakes more than you´d like, and sometimes your vision seems to fade. You try again taking painkillers, but don´t notice any effect after second dose. You figure that you need something stronger. After long search you jam that morphine needle into your thigh and sweet sweet relief arrives. Maybe your leg is broken, but you can limb around thanks to a splint, take some painkillers and you limb around bit faster, maybe some morphine and you won´t even notice whole thing.

Also...maybe we could introduce some, hmmmm herbal remedies that will work like morphine, but may have some funny side effects.

Again simple stuff. You´re in pain, find something to soothe it. No need to browse wiki for which medicine to use for your finger and which is for liver.

Oxygen stuff. Doesn´t really add to things either for the most part. Having your lungs torn would fall once again under then thing about not being able to survive. Maybe somekind of a system where wounds had chance of penetrating lungs and you could use existing supplies to make chest seals (better med-kits better results) and all that jazz, but that would already mean most people wouldn´t know how to react to it without having guides up. which i think is not good for the immersion and experience, but at the same time the medic in me keeps saying i want it.

Where oxygen system could really shine though is if gas weapons are ever introduced. And in that case we could add antidotes for nerve gases and such too.

Extra mechanics and stuff.

As much as i like the sound of lot´s and lot´s of detail going into medical system, i do think that simple and intuitive system is what is best to support the game overall. The game is about surviving, getting sick or wounded is just one part of it. Big and complex systems end up with people having to alt tab between game and wikis, they come in the way of the experience in that they pull you away from immersion. In some cases they even take away from the experience that you´re the one surviving and making the decisions.

That being said, i have nothing against extra mechanics, that flow well with the game, add to the overall experience, and are intuitive rather than arbitrarily imposed.

Also, once again we want to make sure that all the play styles are supported. Most of the medical stuff has serious potential to really shit on loners and soloers as they often can´t depend on outside help.

Somewhere in there you could add a "NO MANUAL RESPAWN" function to prevent those who have broken legs, illnesses, lost limbs or some other sort of detriment to a players character that they would start over for. The players should have to play their character to the end in my opinion. But of course there WOULD be exceptions...

Such as: Glitch to be stuck in an area.....

But you can always Manually suicide your character which should being a fair punishment or something I'm not to quite sure. Input?

They could rename the respawn button to suicide button? that´s basicly the same...add stylish animation to it and voila....not that it´s necessary though.

I'd like to see a more sophisticated health/blood/metabolism mechanic.

If blood is there to stay as some kind of hp-like representation of overall health (as opposed to e.g a more localized damage system), it would be more authentic, if blood could not be regenerated by eating (going from the brink of death to good-as-new by eating 2 cows...) or at least not as convenient as it is in the current state.

Having to take care of hunger and thirst - good.

Being able to 'selfheal' by eating whole animals - not good.

Let blood bags or other medical methods be the only way to regain health/cure wounds, while nutrition mainly helps with regaining stamina (if such a mechanic does get implemented) and just generally is another thing you have to take care of.

If food and drinks are able to replenish something, be it health or stamina (hell, even if not) - let there be a cap/trade off - set a cap on each resource - we can only hold so much food and drink in a certain timeframe after all -and, since it needs to get out again, we need an Excretion mechanic.

Make the characters have the urge to do their No1s and 2s, depending on when and how much food and drinks they consumed. It would take the game's authenticity to a whole new level (though, like the 'suicide button', it might be something the media coverage might focus on in a negative way - 'From teabagging to golden showers').

There's just so much potential in such a gameplay mechanic. Imagine being in a firefight and having to take a leak, infections might give you diarrhea, griefers will rejoice, etc.

Ofc it's kind of a tabooish thing in entertainment/media, but this is supposed to be an anti-game, right? What comes in, goes out, simple as that.

And we could make it possible to eat/drink your own excrements, and have Bear Grylls sponsor this game!

Humans do generate blood over time, and most likely for the game purposes it should be much faster process than in reality. So keeping well fed should indeed provide blood regeneration. I do agree that not in the way it currently comes though.

As for hunger and excretion mechanics...jesus, am i really seriously discussing about possibility of literaly shitting yourself in a game....

Well aside from that it would be absolutely hilarious i don´t think it would add much more to the experience. Simply bit more complex hunger mechanic borrowed directly from one of the skyrim hunger mods might suffice:

Your hunger bar comes in 2 parts, one protrays the level of already digested energy another portrays the amount of food in you stomach. if your stomcah is empty the other bar goes down. Fill up your stomach and it start slowly climbing up again. Eat too much and you face negative consequences. (they have all sorts of hardcore versions too where you need to keep track of amount of vitamins, carbohydrates fats and practicaly everything but let´s not go there ok?) That along with blood regenerating slowly when you´re well fed and not instantly like currently...i think is complex enough system for the purposes of this game and the kind of an experience it tries to convey.

Sorry for my english and typos, but there´s no way in hell i´m proof reading all that shit...deal with it.

<edit> Traps! almost forgot.

Let´s have a simple system of building traps. Basicly trigger (tripwire, pressureplate, magnetic trigger) and the trap (gun made to fire, grenade, explosive, flare, boulder falling dawn). First lay down the trigger, and afterwards add the trap part. If we go really fancy make it so that for example tripwires we could select the spots it connects to.

Edited August 22, 2012 by Frostbyte_

[rekrul 91]

• Add weight to items. The heaveier the weight you carry, the slower you run and the more food and water you need
  
• A trading system
  
• Add a tow vehicle and more wrecked cars that can be towed (i.e. attachTo). Many wrecked cars can only be repaired with correct items and in the repair buildings that already exist. That would allow players to be mechanics and when holding this building, they can repair cars for items
  
• Less fuel, but make some few areas produce e.g. oil. This would require a multitude of items to make. Then you need to bring the crude oil to a refinery to get fuel, which also needs parts. That would make players try to control certain areas and increase both trading and fighting but ultimately player interactions and rewards group cooperations
  
• Item and vehicle deterioration
  
• Make a mine where you can extract iron which again needs multitude of parts to do. Iron can be used to fabricate spare parts for weapons, cars, etc. Maybe fabrication of pars are limited to a few areas as well? (Gun parts - one place, car parts another, etc)
  

Edited August 22, 2012 by Rakrul

[navx2810 17]

M.O.L.L.E. Equipment. -

"

MOLLE

(pronounced

molly

, as in the

female name

) is an

acronym

for

Modular Lightweight Load-carrying Equipment

. It is used to define the current generation of load-bearing equipment and

rucksacks

utilized by the

United States armed forces

, especially the

United States Army

, and its use is also growing in the British Army in the form of the Osprey Modular systems. The system's modularity is derived from the use of

PALS

webbing, rows of heavy-duty nylon stitched onto the vest as to allow for attachment of various MOLLE-compatible pouches and accessories" -

Wikipedia

In DayZ we have MOLLE vests and backpacks already equipped. How about the possibility of using MOLLE gear to have additional inventory opportunities. Linked after this sentence is an example of how the vest can be used to equip various pouches/packs to give more room. http://www.rap4.com/..._Down_MOLLE.jpg

Some benefits are;

• Better customization of a players needs.
  
  • Can equip additional pistol holsters on vest to carry more handguns.
    
  • Can equip longarm holsters on backpack to carry additional rifles/shotguns.
    
  • Can choose to have additional pouches for ammo, food, medical supplies. All depending on what the player wants.
    

  [*]Additional items added to the loot-table.

  • All kinds of items will have to be found and added to the vest/backpack.
    
  • Pouches
    
  • Holsters
    
  • Canister rings
    
  • Grenade switches
    
  • Mounted flashlight
    

  [*]Can act as a sign to other players what kind of player you are, but does not limit or suggest any type of general 'Role system'.

  • If they have a ton of weapon holsters and round pouches; they could be hostile.
    
  • If they have medical pouches; could be a medic.
    
  • If they have various survival pouches; could just be a regular survivor.
    

Other threads have suggested this; this is merely expanding on their idea's.

Edited August 22, 2012 by navx2810

[KnT47r 51]

Great list so far! Especially love the inventory management UI pics

My list of wants for the standalone (on top of what has already been mentioned) is pretty small atm - I'dd add to it over time lol;

Many more weapons and items added to the game, even if they overlap in purpose. (Check my sig for more details)

Edited August 23, 2012 by KnT47r

[UsuallyFriendly 10]

WANDERING HORDES!! VERY NICE :)

[Weatherman 0]

One thing that would make cities more interesting (and scary) is an increased spawn rate at buildings near where gunshots are fired. So, if you fire a gun in a city not only would you aggro nearby zombies, but a new wave might spawn. It seems way too easy and unrealistic to be able to hole up in a building, kill all the zombies within your gun's audible range, then waltz out at your own leisure. I'd like to see them respawn faster in these situations, so that you have to come up with some sort of plan to shoot your way out.

This might also have the side benefit of discouraging bandits (or more accurately, psychos) who like to shoot unarmed people who are trying to gear up in cities and have nothing that they want. If it is more dangerous to run around a city shooting your gun off like a lunatic for the thrill of murder, then people will think twice about it. You can still do it, but it'll be harder to stay alive for long. It might only seem worth it if they have gear you want. If you're sitting on a roof sniping, your gunfire should eventually draw a giant herd of zombies.