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

[angle 0]

Reduce the prevalence of ammo. Right now peoples lives are worth so much less then the ammo it takes to kill them. And its a major factor in why banditry is so easy.

To accomplish this separate the concept of ammunition and magazines.

For instance you have one G17 and one magazine for it. you then find 4 9mm rounds and load them in the magazine. Later you might find 2 more 9mm rounds and add them to the magazine for a total of 6. And if you did not have a magazine you could only fire one round and then have to reload/put a new round in the chamber.

(You keep empty magazines on reload of course since they are so valuable)

[Chambers (DayZ) 27]

My DayZ Wish List

Some of these have been mentioned before, some are outside of the capabilities of any game engine right now due to the massive load of tracking objects, but here's my thoughts.

General Additions to the Engine

- Sounds carrying further - maybe not enough to aggro zombies - but I know for a fact that I can reasonably hear a revolver shot from at least a 1000m, not the 52.8m set by the game. Wind should be a factor - don't worry about altering bullet drift yet, but I should be able to hear things for longer distances if they are coming downwind.

- Have people be able to ride in the back of the pickup trucks, on the handlebars of bicycles, or even in the trunks of cars.

- Holster/stow your pistol, put your rife on your back, and carry things like another backpack, a jerry can, or whatever. Move slower, fine, but I have two hands, let me use them.

- Longer weapons or body parts poking through solid objects; not just prohibiting them from happening but allowing the body to move to accommodate them (i.e. legs and torsos bending along a wall as you lie prone) - It's not an easy task, but 'sold object' should mean SOLID.

- More climbing, ability to jump, and squeezing though narrow areas

- Fire! More Fire! - burn buildings, tires, tents, or vehicles - the smoke of a house fire could be seen for miles, and last for hours.

More Object Control:

- Put more things into other things - I should be able to fill barrels, bottles or jugs with fuel or water. Make me have to clean it so it's not contaminated (water in the fuel, fuel in the water) I'd rather be sick than dead from thirst.

- Dumpsters - be able to hide in them.

- Allow me to hide a stash of weapons or supplies in a container-like object like a dumpster, or under some rocks against an old rock wall

- If I want to take a couple trash cans, put it in the back of my truck and drive it to a house across the map so that I can stack them and some boxes as well to get on the roof of a one-story house, I should be able to.

- Dig a small hole and bury stuff - not an underground bunker, just a hole. With a tarp or box I could reasonably protect canned food, canteens, and other basic stuff. to reliably bury weapons, you'd need a box, a tarp, and and a great deal of axle grease.

- No tent? Build a lean-to from wood, leaves and other stuff - works as well as a tent, I've built them myself, and if done right and placed strategically, can be camouflaged very well.

- Even in the apocalypse, if I found a auto repair garage, I could modify my vehicle - you don't need power for ox-acetylene welding, just the tanks - for example, let me add light armor to civilian vehicles to protect tires, windows, and the engine a little better - I'd be slower, and still no match for an anti-materiel gun, but against lighter rounds have a bit more protection. Get a working generator and you can do more.

- IIRC, towing vehicles is already possible in ArmA II. I would love to be able to tow cars, both useable and the rusting hunks in towns, and put them to use as barricades and whatnot.

- Ropes; rappelling, climbing, stretch across a road to clothesline bikers, tie up hostages, or even string backpacks up in trees and have them act like tents.

- Make your own cheap-ass, low quality, ghillie suit from plants and branches. Spreading charcoal from a used campfire on your clothes should help hide that clean survivor outfit of yours. A grimy old olive-drab tarp, covered in foliage, with a holes for the head/arms and worn like a poncho could work too.

More points of failure

- Cars break down

- Guns jam, some rounds of ammo are duds, that old shotgun and box of ammo you found in a barn is probably not the most reliable.

- Flashlight, l85 thermal sights, rangefinders, GPS and NVG batteries should wear out and may not be that water resistant if you take a swim.

- That boat you found might have a leak, or maybe a tire blows out if you go too fast for too long or run over something hard or once too often (that one is at least partially already present).

- Oh, your matches got wet? You should only have so many to a box, anyways.

- Meat should go bad after a while - remember those raw steaks you put in your tent last week? Maybe that pig has trichinosis or that cow has a huge, pus filled infection that spreads during the gutting process. (perhaps mitigated by one of these 'learning skill' things I've been hearing about)

- Ghillie suits need to be maintained after a few days. Hmm. I wonder if they're flammable?

[ClankyMichael 1]

Map suggestions:

- There should be some buildings locked but enterable by like a certain way. Example: Theres a building that has much loot inside but to get in you require a key that is somewhere randomly generated around the map. Example 2: In order to get into another building with much more loot you need to turn on the power in the town/city by turning switches on or providing some sort of fuel for power that only lasts for a certain amount of time but you can still get out of the building if it is locked by turning on a switch inside of it that lasts very shortly.

- This can light up nights in citys and can be an advantage and disadvantage to players.

- If players don't want people turning on the power they can defend the stations that turn them on in the towns

- This will make DayZ more interactive for players and provide more warzones like Cherno/NW Airfield.

- There could also be bunkers in airfield/military bases that require authorization to get in through killing a Military commander zombie that holds a keycard that allows the player access inside for the awesome loot that can spawn inside ;D

- Gives players more of a challange than just walking inside a barrack in NW Airfield.

Thanks for reading and i hope this gets put in the standalone game :D.

[herrkaschke 0]

- a bigger map of chernarus

- a native mac osx version (at the moment i play it on bootcamp on my imac with everything on high and it works very good but i dont want to switch my os only for this game)

[Shag 90]

Biggest peeve at the moment is zombie spawn. At the moment zeds in a town = player. People spot zeds and go hunting players.

Zeds should always be in towns. The zeds should not actively scan for players until a player is within 100m of them, to save on CPU power. Once you enter a town, your CPU then does the work of scanning for the zeds to keep server load to minimum. Once you leave the area the zeds go back to shuffling around and not actively scanning for players.

The only way another player should know you are in a town is if the zeds agro or they actually spot you.

[CNasty 19]

After reading some of the suggestions on this thread for what people want, I think I came up with a better idea to solve it all. Rocket and crew just need to stop working on the programming, and start building the virus instead. Once the virus is released into the wild, the people will then have all the realism they crave. And it would probably be less work for his crew.

[lozz08 0]

Bullets and ammo as separate items, manual loading of mags. Know it's been said, just re-iterating.

I hope the dayz Dev team spends a lot of time time on AI optimisation for better CPU performance and immersion. ARMA 2 AI obviously wasn't made for stuff like this. Maybe even building the AI from the ground up? Wouldn't be as complex as ARMA 2 and might be worth it.

Arma 2 doesn't use much of the fourth CPU core. What if separate AI groups could be processed on different cores? I'm not a programmer, but that sounds nice.

[Krobar 75]

After reading some of the suggestions on this thread for what people want, I think I came up with a better idea to solve it all. Rocket and crew just need to stop working on the programming, and start building the virus instead. Once the virus is released into the wild, the people will then have all the realism they crave. And it would probably be less work for his crew.

At least being a smartass is better than being a dumbass.

[Ghass2 6]

I could say a thousand words in appreciation, complexity and how complete this would make "DayZ"

But instead I'll just say, if rocket or the Day Z dev team followed exactly what you've said, It would be my only game. maybe not just my only game but also everyone's only game.

One last suggestion, can we please have barriers, already in the game, BLOCK zombies? Its fucking annoying when they just walk through sandbags like its water

[unclegus 21]

Bullets and ammo as separate items, manual loading of mags. Know it's been said, just re-iterating.

Further to the bullets and ammo discussion: the green bar that shows how full a clip is should be modified. Instead of getting shorter as the bullets are spent, it should slowly change to grey. This is because it is very easy to look at the length of the line and see exactly how many bullets you have left, which is unrealistic. With a colour slowly changing, it would be difficult to convert that into an actual number of bullets left. However, you can get a general idea of how full/empty it is and it would be easy to compare two clips to each other and see which one has more bullets in it. This basically simulates holding the clip and feeling the weight. You can tell if you have a full mag if it is heavy, and an empty mag if it is light and you can easily tell which of two mags has more bullets in it, but you can't tell exactly how many bullets any given mag has; my proposed colour system would simulate this.

[joikd 25]

I've posted my idea before, but I am going to post it again in this standalone thread since I think it is such a huge game changer. It deals with something that seems to bother nobody else but me --magic, invisible leprechauns that go around and re-spawn loot and zombies before your very eyes over and over and over and over. How does this not bother everyone else? The only thing I would prioritize above this idea is hacking/exploit fixes.

Let me begin by saying that I love DayZ, and am very thankful for this mod. My goal with this post is to propose a couple of ideas that I think would dramatically change DayZ for the better (much more authentic) without trying force (punish/reward) anyone/anything artificially. The ideas simply change the environment to a more authentic one given the zombie/survival apocalypse that is the setting for DayZ.

Loot--current system:

1. Spawns only in structures (authentic only if zero re-spawns occur)

2. Spawns in the same exact locations (authentic only if zero re-spawns occur)

3. Spawns an unlimited number of times (completely ruins the authentic scarcity of resources that would be present in this situation--combined with #1 & #2, players can actually thrive instead of struggling to survive)

The real culprit of the inauthenticity with loot in the current system is the unlimited re-spawning. But, just removing #3 would not work in the current system since there are not permanent players for each server (server loot must sustain much more than the 25, 30, 50, etc. number of players that the server allows simultaneously). Even if each server did have a permanent set of players, removing #3 completely would make for a setting where, eventually, all players would be reduced to crossbows, canteens, map, compass, matches, etc. (all of the unlimited items) since the initial loot piles would not be re-spawned. While this may be an authentic scenario, I do not think that this is Rocket is trying to accomplish. Reducing loot spawns, while creating a more playable scenario than removing them altogether, still leaves that inauthentic feel of magically reappearing loot in places that have already been completely

scavenged--no authentic explanation of these re-spawns can be made.

So, if #3 is necessary, how can the loot system be made more authentic while keeping #3? The answer is removing all structure spawning, and replacing it with air drops (maybe have structures continue to infrequently spawn a non-weapon item (can of beans, etc.). The authentic basis for this idea comes from a man who describes his experiences during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990's when the Balkan city where he lived was surrounded and cut-off for a year (google "Selco" & "Balkan"). He credits US air drops with saving his life. Add zombies to Selco's experience, and you have something very close to DayZ.

The aircraft making the drops in DayZ could originate from the regions to the north and west (south and east is ocean) of Chernarus, and either be random (time and location), somehow authentically influenced by players, or a combination of both. The aircraft would then fly across the map to its drop zone, make the drop, and fly back across, and off of the map. These air drops would create all kinds of interesting (and authentic) scenarios. Players desperate for supplies may rush recklessly to the drop zone to grab what they can before zombies and/or bandits arrive. A large, well-supplied group might secure the drop zone to try to take everything for themselves, and engage anything that comes near. A group with a functioning Huey could become extremely powerful, since they could use radar to locate incoming aircraft, and quickly travel to drop zones all over the map (not to mention its weapons). Who is making these air drops? It could be the same group that failed in its military missions (crashed choppers). The variety of weapons/ammo/supplies that are dropped is explained by the fact that this group is just scavenging, stealing, etc. whatever it can find to include in the air drops.

Zombies--current system:

4. Spawn and remain (unless giving chase) only around structures (unauthentic--zero zombie threat in the wilderness (opposite of what one would expect))

5. Re-spawn an unlimited amount of times (combined with #4 makes for a completely unauthentic experience--even if all 50 players banded together, they cannot keep a small town clear since the zombies just keep re-spawning forever right in front of their eyes)

Just like loot, it is the re-spawning that makes the current zombie system unauthentic. And, just like loot, partially or completely removing zombie re-spawns still leaves a feeling of inauthenticity (either zombies still magically re-spawn by structures even if it has been cleared, or no zombies ever threaten a cleared area again).

Again, we need an authentic solution that allows re-spawning (zombies this time). The answer is moving all zombie spawns/re-spawns to the north and west edges of the map, and have the zombies migrate in packs to the south and east across the map. The packs would change their migration path if it sees/hears players, aircraft, and/or vehicles (sprint toward any of these). If the ArmA engine could view these packs as a single unit (unless they are being viewed by a player--similar to the current system), then the packs could be large (25 packs with 40 zombies each = 1000 total zombies).

The combination of both the loot and zombie ideas would also give an authentic risk/reward system regarding player location. The further north/west a player is located, the earlier the player can spot an aircraft on its way to making an air drop, which is a big advantage (reward). But, the threat of zombies is also increased the further north/west a player is located (risk). Conversely, the further south and east a player is located, the less chance they have of seeing/hearing an aircraft, but the less chance they have of facing zombies (zombies killed off as they migrate south and east).

[snakeuncut 1]

I am sorry, my English is poor, I come from faraway China, here hope you will consider some recommended on dayzstandalone version

1.Add combination of items like:Gasoline + fabric(from zombie who made​​) + bottle = Molotov cocktails etc

2.More weather effects and changes in the weather, natural disasters, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, storms, earthquakes, etc.

3.More bloody violence, such as killing an enemy sneaked into the state there are many changes, would like to see more direct headshot, beheadings and other effects. For another example, you can head off to the zombies hostile players inserted on Tippy The warning, of course, you can also put the other face cut off, do adult skin mask (like Texas Chainsaw Massacre), of course, you can also head of the enemy carry. (Consider the issue of the sale in the steam platform)

4.Players can create genuine authentication server

5.Can you add a cover system?

6.Add more interaction and streams filled with water bottles, fishing for example.

7.Add more animals.

8.More players scalability (mod), homemade map, homemade behavior (any), the system self-made disaster, homemade animal systems, etc.

9.Add the official event system, for example, to be a hunting season in place of the number of days specified provisions pvp, the last surviving player wins. Can get more supplies, but also a unique visual representation. (Whether it can be considered to live in the game? Similar to that client dota2 live)

10.Custom roles, camera shooting the real face can even be used as a game character.

11.Garment custom system.

12.Add robbery players can rob the other players, not him (or her) to kill.

13.Adding a player with the players trading system (barter)

14.If you are a small team of six people, then the more development tools to the players in the official version, they can help you do more.

15.Zombies now shot dead I feel a bit unreal, Can multi-gun death?

16.Add Rope and more action about it for example Climbing,do raft etc

Thank you, you can read full article

Edited August 27, 2012 by snakeuncut

[R3cK 8]

love the inventory.

really thought of the jagged alliance 2 inventory (especially with the unofficial 1.13 patch for more realism)

with the mod you can out some gadges into other items, like a nightvision to your helmet insead of the eye slot. or a sidecutter (cut fences) into your bigger toolbox (used for weapon repairing) so you save one inventory slot. or granades on your military jacket which also saves slots.

just some thoughts because i really love the JA2 inventory (no matter if original invent or with the 1.13 mod)

weapon modifikation like in ja2 would also be great.

[Lt_Dutchy 1]

This sounds freaking great! I tried to give you more Heinz Beans but it didnt let me, u deserve more than one can ;)

[6raham 90]

I have a question for the forum team / dev team if anyone is around. Is anyone in development actually reading and taking any notice of these ideas..? Just that I was halfway through a suggestion but then thought to myself 'what is the point if nobody is actually reading this', and gave up.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not having a moan here. I have read loads of great ideas on this forum and still enjoy reading through it.

But...

From this old player's perspective, the forum is like an abandoned quarantine camp right now, or some kind of Frankenstein monster, shunned by the developers who created it, which does nothing to encourage feedback or ideas; I would love to contribute, but feel there is nobody listening.

[xximrtwoixx 104]

Add all gear both inactive and active to the player model.

- This is more work in the short term than a skin system but it would actually work as it would accuratley display a players playstyle because it would show what they are carrying with them.

- This would also work to identify player killers as they would be outfitted in a different way that normal survivors.

- This mechanic would not punish any playstyle, nor would it be possible to "game" or min/max the mechanic for any results.

Here's the thread I made for this suggestion and my thoughts on how the inventory system should work.

http://dayzmod.com/f...-player-models/

Add dynamic hard caps to loot spawn chance.

- Use the possesion rate of an item to determine its spawn chance, this would introduce actual scarcity of items that players value and would add authenticity to the constant loot generation. As it would basically be only trash after a given point.

- To conserver game resources have a nightly job determine possesion rates within the hive and set the loot chances, then when a server restarts the next day it will have the new numbers.

Point Buy Character Creaton

- Use a point system to purchase benefits, or skills if included at character generation.

- Could be used to customize the way your character looks with if there is a clothing system

- Balances out spawn on group dynamic

- Thread with more details

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/82383-point-buy-character-creation/

Edited August 27, 2012 by xXI Mr Two IXx

[Photolysis 25]

Rocket actually pointed people towards this thread and commented on how it had some excellent suggestions. I think it's safe to assume he's keeping an eye on it.

[GlaciusTS 7]

Give us the option at the start of the game to choose an outbreak type. Some of us prefer traditional undead zombies you have to shoot in the head over the infected.

[mattt* 17]

Survivor difficulty level :

1 - Get rid of all the military equipment (military weapons, NVG, Grenade smoke or frag, Range finder etc). nb : as GPS is common on the civilian market, the fact that it is present is not that unreal.

2 - Set 1 shot kill (head/chest) as in reality.

3 - Weapons available : rifle (any types as kar, lee enfield etc; AK is the only type of assault rifle available as it is common in Russia - ex URSS, no ACOG or anything, standard aim type), revolver, glock, CZ sniper only.

4 - Underground basement.

All this to avoid the "i snipe you from 1000 meters" of the current game, for players who really want a different experience on DayZ with close combat fight and not evolute on a snipe land.

[Lose2No13ody 4]

Bounty for Bandits aka Player Killers...

Hear me out!! create a system where you can hunt Pkers with over 5+ Pks on the server or aviod them....If you have a map then hints to where the notorious pyscho murderer is will pop up giving you a approximate location of where the Pker is... maybe a circle radius type of thing so to be not too exact...

You can't make it too easy to pk then everyone and their grandmother will pk and that will never be fun in a game. Every game in history ends bad when there is no punishments for Pkers...Ofcourse you can still pk without being noticed when you first start on your murderous ways but after 5 kills that should be enough grief and gear to set you up nicely to be hunted down. In RL no matter what kind of SHTF kind of Event happens people will bind together and try to take out psychos quickly...so bandits will exist but people will be hunting them down too..

Edited August 27, 2012 by Lose2No13ody

[ua_dsr 1]

How about leaving shells after shooting? Would be a nice touch to make them also collect-able - leave no trace behind you! As I can see it, this feature could be real-life-style: So that shells will remain on the ground until next server restart or smthing like that. Or it could be purpose-style: That basically means that purpose of shells lays in indicating recent shooting, for example, and they will only remain on the ground for 30 minutes. or for an hour.

[Thorion 0]

I have a suggestion for Food.In the wilderness or in the fields, it should be collecting the berries you can or apple trees, etc. Since it is very hard but to eat or to get the necessary items for meat to be yes verarbeiten.Kann Sun set up the fruits not last as long as meat.

What would not be bad if there were more wild animals such as bears, for example. And you can set traps, so you can concentrate on other things and return later to the fall and see if anything caught wurde.Nat

Edited August 27, 2012 by Thorion

[AtotehZ 13]

One thing is very important in my opinion. I have seen that you are going to release the standalone on multiple platforms. Good, more cash in the budget later on, but..

If you even consider releasing some half baked port, like so many other games you see out there, I will not even remotely consider buying the game.

I like playing PC games on my PC.

Edited August 27, 2012 by AtotehZ

[Photolysis 25]

One feature I don't think has been listed here yet - forgive me if it has - is dangerous wildlife native to the map. Obviously the type of wildlife would be appropriate to the setting, so we don't end up with polar bears on tropical islands.

[Vorg 1]

You can shoulder main weapon to use secondary and holster secondary to use main. Should be able to shoulder/holster both at the same time to get to the flashlight or axe or even use the knife as a weapon in a pinch.

Be able to shoulder and holster 2 of each. allows for a crossbow or sniper riffle and a regular rifle/shotgun.

I know underground stuff is planed on a big scale. But on a small scale, once you get an entrenching tool be able to dig hidden a bunker. Dig at trees/bushes or at a rock which set the entrance type. Only the person who dug it and any granted access would see it as an entrance. Only vehicle if any that could be taken into the bunker would be bikes. First room would be the main staging area with some storage/equipment on ether side. Back with be starting a narrow hall with each person granted access being a to add 1 room. Every 2 rooms would extend the hall. These rooms would be smaller and have limited storage for that person to store stuff. If they are kicked from the bunker, the room and contents would go into limbo until that person joined another and added a room or started his own. And the bunker/room should be tied to the player account, not the char. The main reason to store stuff is to regear if killed. If you loose access to the room/bunker from death, it would defeat 90% of it's usefulness.