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

[unconsciousobjector 69]

Yeah, still though as hard as it would be to be a zombie, it would still be quite unrealistic, plus we don't want dayz ending up like Left 4 dead versus mode where hoards of zombies are controlled by players.

I think your misunderstanding me. "Life" as an infected would be a VERY short lived (pardon the pun) experience. The need to feed before perma death would be GREATLY accelerated. It's very easy to kill an infected with a weapon, unless your careless or just very unlucky. I still think it would add some great "oh shit" moments in DayZ.

[unconsciousobjector 69]

How about government troops, say squad level, traveling the "world" killing everything or essentially purging the land? All of them lootable and some armored vehicles would be great.

I mean how cool would it be to see everyone in Cherno scatter like rats when a couple airplanes do a bombing run? Holy shit, a couple falling bombs followed by ground troops purging a city would be epic!

EDIT: While I'm at it, why not a military base that's functional. operational and fully staffed? That would determinately add some drama and it's not unbelievable that some military survivors gather to a "base". If properly manned, it would require SEVERAL players to even contemplate a raid on the base. IN the unlikely event that a base is overrun, a scripted counter attack to re-take the base would be easy enough and provide a believable reoccupation of the facility.

Edited August 30, 2012 by Hydrocodone

[akozz 2]

What this game need is endgame stuff. After one weak of sneaking, running and collecting stuff i have 2 great weapons, tons of ammo, clothes, food, water, all medical stuff i need, tools etc. I found almost all guns in the game, i'm only missing two items to full gear collection gps and NV. And then i can either go to cherno or elektro for some pvp action and probably die or... stop playing. Hunting and living in the forest is fun but not for very long. There is just nothing to do after you collect all gear. All You can do is start PVP, die and start all over again or quit. And while PvP is very fun and DayZ is very popular right now, there must be some endgame gamplay in standalone DayZ. Some long term goal that will keep people playing and trying to get it. Maybe crafting, more locations to explore and some rewarding loot, ability to build something ? Or some system that will reward those who can stay alive for longer ?

Let say for each day you survive your character improve in something. Maybe you can run a little faster ? maybe some small health bonus ? don't know, open to discussion. As long as You get reward for playing and staying alive. That would also make people to think twice before they start a fight. You can easily get your gear back on your own or if your friend is there to keep your stuff for you. But You can't get back all those days you survived and all bonuses you obtained.

[Haplo (DayZ) 44]

i would love to see the most rewarding military installations require power tools to be accessed. not just the main doors, but the armory too. this should be in a very densely 'populated' (by zombies) area, ie. a city. the ensuieng noise would aggro a ton of zombies and alert nearby players, increasing the tension, the adrenaline, and the sense of reward.

i'm not suggesting this should be the case for all military installations, but this one should certainly be the most rewarding, and perhaps some specialty items can only be found here.

on top of that, the biggest city needs to be at least 3x the size of cherno and elektro put together. the zombie population should be extremely dense, to the point where moving through the city without silenced or melee weapons is certain death.

[seshnew 1]

• Zombies should attract other zombies
  
  • Example: A zombie spots a player and screams or runs after the player. Other zombies hear or see the alerted zombie and thus repeating the same action and running after the first running zombie. This will quickly turn into a cascading affect allowing zombies to be lured towards player even if the zombies don't hear the initial gunshot.
    
  • Explaination: Zombies are suppose to be mindless creatures that are attracted by movement and sound therefore they won't be able to tell the difference between a running player or another running zombie. Same goes with sound. When the 2nd zombie finally reaches the first it realizes the mistake but will probably be closer to the player by doing so.This is not introduced as a form of communication between zombies but just as a reaction.
    
  • This will also allow for zombies to be less compact but still deliver the hoard effect needed to be a hard situation.
    

  [*]Less ammunition more melee

  • Currently there are very few types of melee weapons in Dayz making killing zombies too fast and effective. This allows for a single player the ability to raid a town by himself without assistance.
    

  [*]Zombies should have a harder time hearing footsteps

  • With less ammunition, this would force players to learn how to sneak up and kill zombies quickly and without noise. Well if a zombie simply hears the foot steps of player and then notifies other zombies there wouldn't be very many living players. Not that I'm against the easy death of players.
    
  • Force teamplay with the need to take out multiple zombies in the same area at once. Make it so players have to team up to raid even a medium size town. Place more melee weapons,food,drink outside town so players have the ability to survive while trying to recruit forces and raiding teams. If a player tries to go solo or makes a mistake a zombie will see that player kill another zombie setting off the cascading affect as mentioned above, quickly eliminating that players chances of surviving the raid.
    
  • undetected players should delivers one hit melee kills on zombies, to support effectiveness of a well planned and delivered raid.
    

  [*]Ally markers

  • Allow players to set marks indicating to players of allies or enemy protected areas or paths
    
  • Example: Players can leave Marks in trees or along side buildings allowing them to direct or warn players of their location and or intentions.
    

The developers have control of this social experiment where players don't have any respect of another persons life and only partially fear their own death. It will take alot of tweaking to try and convince players to work together and form a post apocalyptic society. In the real world, I would expect people to eventually group up, forming small units working together to protect and maintain a chosen areas resources. Then rival groups would fight or ally up for these resources. Eventually a map this size would have 2 or 3 of these groups fighting over the server.

[canersg 0]

Fishing Rod could be useful for getting food from sea or lakes.

[Mr.Fraven 14]

First Aid Kits should be added to carry the medical supplies you find

[zonn44 25]

Walkie talkies with a range of about 1km.

Should be reasonably common.

Lets you talk to anybody who has one also.

Makes interacting with strangers more interesting.

[nihilisst 43]

I would love to see DayZ become much more "realistic" and difficult.

I want it to be so harsh and hostile that I feel completely lost and helpless.

I want to be thankful for every Soda Can, Bean Can, Bullet or Fuel Drop I find.

I want to have to think about every bullet I fire, because I never know when and if I will find some more ammo.

I want it to be a real fight for Survival.

So, in a word: Make EVERYTHING rarer. Not just High-Tier Military Weapons, but also Food, Drinks, Tools, Ammo, Fuel, Clothing, Backpacks, ...

[A.Williams 17]

Full avatar customisation and civilian clothes perhaps some light camo gear

[A.Williams 17]

BAYONETS! Sword and knife type for lee-Enfield and knife for others

[a sleeping dog 3]

Batteries

We have vehicles, gps, infrared, and night vision goggles, and all need electricity to run. Since we are surviving in a world without electricity, batteries should be necessary to keep these items in operating condition.

Edited August 31, 2012 by a sleeping dog

[Traveler (DayZ) 27]

A vehicle can use an old batery for years, as it recharges it while driving, remember?

Otherwise, an aimpoint-sight runs on a single battery for years, too. So basically, we are only talking about flashlights, nightvision, and rangefinders,as well as special scopes (FN/FAL ANPVS and L85 thermal).

I would definitely second the bayonets idea though!! Had this myself, but in Arma2 it seemed unreasonable.

Also, radio station broadcasting would be cool...and working radios, of course!

And as lategame-elements, getting "stuff" of civilization working again...like electricity or water supply to the houses...to repair, secure and maybe even zombie proof a powerplant would be brutally hard, but kinda cool.

Plus customizable vehicles, like with armor on the sides and front, as we see it on a lot of zombie movies...

[samuri55 0]

Hey DayZ Team! If you want to put your standalone game into steam, now there is "Steam Greenlight" Project running. Where you can put your game and let people rate. If you got high enough rate your game will be put into steam. I recommended you to put your game into "Steam Greenlight" Project. I'm sure DayZ is going to be accepted and will be put into steam! :) :) :)

[seshnew 1]

Allowing players to quickly switch between a primary, secondary,and melee weapon instead of just primary and secondary. Most people in a survival situation dont keep their survival knife in their backpack. Kinda negates its purpose

[ParaplegicKermit 1]

A couple of suggestions, not sure if they've been mentioned yet as I haven't read through all 360-plus replies. So I ask for your forgiveness if they have.

Beards for your character could grow out over time (if the user chooses), and would be a good way for people to visually recognize you as a long time survivor. Women could grow out their leg hair (JJ).

This might be a little to RPG-ish for people, but some form of mechanism for learning skills (first aid, vehicle repair, food prep, etc). This could be a way to encourage positive interactions with other survivors. If you spend time with those with higher attributes to you and help them repair/heal/cook then you would both get buffs to those skills. The skills could be used to allow or not the repair/healing/cooking of more complicated items (such as only the highest level would be able to repair a helicopter; as I think we can all appreciate this isn't a skill that every Joe walking around could do; or say healing more severe fractures). Right now, there's not a lot of insentive to work with the other survivors, you might as well kill then and loot the body. I appreciate that Rocket does not want to dictate the play, but I think it' more realistic that the characters would have to learn skills from each other.

Just my two cents...

[Cheese_omg 8]

I have a 1 hour and 17 minute recording of a Teamspeak interview with someone from the Dev team and they also talked about some of the ideas you were talking about.

They also talked about the engine that the game runs on and some of the problems like if you had alot of corpses in building it would make the server very laggy as the engine could not run it and also the same with every building being enterable and loot everywhere.

[BigBen. 2]

Woow. Very nice work dude! Perfect ideas! You have my beans! :) :thumbsup: :beans:

[Cheese_omg 8]

Hey DayZ Team! If you want to put your standalone game into steam, now there is "Steam Greenlight" Project running. Where you can put your game and let people rate. If you got high enough rate your game will be put into steam. I recommended you to put your game into "Steam Greenlight" Project. I'm sure DayZ is going to be accepted and will be put into steam! :) :) :)

BI could just publish it and it would be put on Steam.

(I can try and get in contact with someone from the Dev team and ask.)

Edited August 31, 2012 by Cheese_omg

[Sneakers O'Toole 57]

It's probably already considered by the programmers, but the dogs and players need 'idle movement' like in all other fps shooters when you stand still the char still moves and makes little 'idle movements.

I just saw a demo of the dogs and it just looks unatural when the live beings are dead still.

[rpatto92@hotmail.com 26]

Hey take a look at my post: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/84176-humanity-what-is-it-good-for/#entry793267 I'm try to make some sense of the existing humanity system and looking at ways it can still be implement without players falling victom to the bandit trap scenario.

[akozz 2]

I don't know if anybody mentioned it before, it's really simple idea. If somebody did than sorry.

Molotov Cocktail

All you need is empty whiskey bottle and then find some gasoline to fill it + matches to use it. Simple and effective weapon against zombies.

Also some other uses of fire in combat would be great sinc pretty much in every single zombie movie there is a sceen where zombies are burning or are fight with some kind of fire.

Edited September 1, 2012 by STRYK3R

[esuoh 35]

You should be able to repair powerplants in order to give energy to cities for a while. This means working gas stations, light on the street at night, a way to recharge car batteries, etc.

You should also be able to gather wood/steel and fortify a house, making it your temporary base. How difficult it would be to destroy it depends on how many barricades you built, as well what materials you used. People could actually start building bases inside cities, instead of outside the hotspots (ie almost on the black line).

[tiagobernardo@live.com.pt 8]

Make the game Clan-playable. I'm not asking to know where my mates are, not even asking to spawn near them.

I'm asking for some kind of setup where clans can play their game by simply password it without being blacklisted by you.

How I wish the standalone could become a good game, getting into major events with it..

[shamrockeu 2]

As of now DayZ is practiacally un-playable at night without NvGs ("I have a flashlight, that's all I need!" - And that is why you have only ever owned a Makarov PM).

Yes, it is part of the game, the fear of night, the not knowing the hell where you are. But I'd love to see even 50% of zombies that spawn to have their eyes glow red.

All of the people who are about to rage at me, screw you.