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

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

These ideas are similar to others suggested, but it's my brain fart contribution. I made a thread for this but maybe this belongs here.

1) I understand that killing zombies is boring after awhile (I'm starting to feel it myself), and that PvP adds replay value, but I think it would be great to make Zombies more challenging (more blood, but make them stagger when shot), that might make teamwork a more desirable strategy, if at least 2 guys were needed to unload on a Zed to kill it quickly enough for a safe outcome.

2) Then add a secure property mechanic with light barricades on town borders, not a safe zone with no PvP, and a way to clear zombies for extended periods of time while you still occupy a town/city. IE, if you kill ALL zombies in a certain range, and set up the barricades in a certain time limit, they cannot respawn quite as quickly or in as great numbers as long as the barricades stand. Then you might see more focus on acquisition, and retention of properties, clan versus clan. All the while, trying to stem the flow of Zeds.

This idea requires larger amounts of players per server to make it work, and might be too much "structure" considering the original vision, but I thought maybe some of these thoughts might be interesting to put out there for discussion.

I've read similar ideas on here regarding property acquisition, but when I thought this up, I did not recall reading anything with these particular features.

Whether you like my ideas or not, thanks for reading.

Edited September 10, 2012 by BioHaze

[JJTopper 2]

A couple more suggestions:

- The ability to whistle, to attract/distract zombies.

- Spawn birds in the forrest. Have them sit in the trees/searching for worms on the ground and if you're not paying attention and walk into their radius, you'll spook them and they'll make a lot of noise crowing/flying away. This would give away your position in the woods. Adds some tactical depth outside urban areas.

- Spectator mode. And if you really want to go all out with it, the DOTA2 International was amazing...where you could watch the tourney from the game client with commentators and all that good stuff. It was awesome and could be a great tool for community-driven events like the Hunger GameZ.

- Full UI customization (or removal). A must for streamers.

Edited September 10, 2012 by JJTopper

[iashford 73]

I'd like the ability to hit zombies with my rifle butt, that will leave them momentarily confused and staggered. And a huge range of civilian clothing

[Karon 3]

Suggestions:

Food

Make it rarer - decrease the spawntimes or the amount. Right now there is no point in hunting as you can easily obatin enough cans of food just by goin into a supermarket and loot the 4-7 cans that are there. I never have problems getting food out of cans, but I rarely see wild life. I would actually hunt deers and stuff if it wasnt so easy to obtain cans (right now I usually have around 7 in my backpack and only eat one when I find a new one, which is pretty easy).

Decrease the spawntime to like twice a day BUT keep the amount, or decrease the amount of cans taht is spawned.

Thus in mind add

Cannibalism

Cannibalism would add a new horror to the game, people hunting other peoples - not for their gear but for their fleash as a reason of the lack of food. Ofcourse this would have sideeffects on the body of the cannibal but it would add a whole new level of intensity.

Beside taht another suggestion I would like to make (as I didnt saw this in the list so far) - make it first person only. I know this cuts the fov that you have in RL at about 80° BUT it adds way more intensivity to the game then in thirdperson + it allows people not to abuse the 360° fov they have with the 3p enabled.

[sneekygreenman 196]

I ask only one thing...hats. I want to be able to gear up with a leather stetson and a revolver....

[freeman83 51]

i want to be able to disguise the entrance to my underground home with something like a bush.i want to make a network like the viet cong.

http://lh6.ggpht.com...%255B2%255D.jpg

Edited September 11, 2012 by freeman83

[JJTopper 2]

How about walkie talkies (item spawn) with like 200+ channels on the server. So you can talk with friends (meet up on a specific channel) or randomly tune into channels to try and find other survivors and talk.

Edit: Already mentioned (radios I assume). Not sure how to delete my post though. My bad!

Edited September 11, 2012 by JJTopper

[Zeppa 562]

I like the radio idea, but I think that feature wont be much used... meta gaming is the way to go with clans and groups, would be nice if they could restrict certain aplications runnin in windows while gamin, like teamspeak, vent and stuff... so you had you use ingame features..

I see problem with this but just thinking.

ps. So radios would be only for spying or trolling ppl..

Edited September 11, 2012 by Zeppa

[Gabe Newell 45]

• Another things is having single bullets as individual items. This is because they will likely become the main form currency and to trade them for other low-level items like food and medicine they need to be separate in order to allow greater flexibility in trading.
  

Sounds like Metro 2033 to me.

[hawc 63]

- Spectator mode. And if you really want to go all out with it, the DOTA2 International was amazing...where you could watch the tourney from the game client with commentators and all that good stuff. It was awesome and could be a great tool for community-driven events like the Hunger GameZ.

Not a good idea, people would fly around and spot players or look for their camps.

[indominator 95]

cremation pires, just like in the walking dead comics, diminishing zombie spawn rates, if you kill a lot and throw their bodies in these you feel like they diminish in the next wave, unless you be dumb and make more and more noise

[JJTopper 2]

Not a good idea, people would fly around and spot players or look for their camps.

Spectator mode is usually a server-side option reserved for special events/tournaments. It wouldn't be an issue.

[CerebralZombie (DayZ) 151]

When zombies catch up to you they should be able to lunge. This will end in you getting hit once, and the chance of them than stumbling to the ground. Maybe even have a chance that they grab onto you, and make it so you have to out tap them to get them off before the horde or just other zombies get to you. It's pretty lame to see zombies catch up to you, than stop, and attack the thin air. :lol:

[Benderz of Hell 3]

I do like the idea. Personally I think some of it goes into major detail. What you are suggesting is a completely realistic scenario. This is what a game like DayZ should be, but if that is done I feel that some players might not want to play at all. The problem I would have is probably the brutal dismemberment or major repercussions of getting shot. Yes yes, getting shot in real life will do a massive amount of trauma to you, but in a game I don't think it should be as extreme. I'm not saying this simply because I don't like the idea, but because of how tiresome some firefights would get. Sure there are points where you can engage an enemy and walk away untouched, but it could become problematic when little resistance is given and a lot of damage is done.

For example, you sneak up on a player and you open fire. Before you deliver the killing blow, they start firing rounds at you in panic. One of them clips your arm and severs your limb, which means game over for you. The other player did die, but you gave up your life to the hands of a lucky bullet.

Once again, I completely understand that the outcome in real life would be just that, but I think in something like a game it would just become too tiresome. At DayZ's current state, you get in a fight, and whoever has the least amount of bullet holes gets to grab the loot. Even though this may seem unrealistic, it might be the only way some players can deal with the game.

Edited September 12, 2012 by Dr. Do You In

[cybourg 4]

I was wondering if the dev team could make as much stuff done by the server. The reason is that you can't hack the the server, which means you can't have hackers spawn items, teleport, or other major hacks.

[blacktric 3]

I don't know if this has already been discussed in the topic but;

-Being able to disassemble parts from cars, both enterable/driveable/repairable ones and the wrecked ones that can't be entered (like the wrecked Humvees that can seen in and around zombie populated areas) but clearly has a couple undamaged tires, would be a fantastic addition. It would make repairing vehicles a little bit easier and would also let players to disassemble certain parts before quitting a server to ensure that whoever is trying to steal the car will at least have a harder time doing it.

-Being able to drain fuel from driveable cars (with both using a Jerry Can to save the fuel for later usage or draining it onto ground thus wasting the fuel if one doesn't have a Jerry can): Again, to ensure that people who'll try to steal a vehicle would have a harder time to do so.

[SpAz514 2]

Nobody said that but I got an ideea. Now cars start their engine in 1 sec. What would it be if engines would start harder, have a low chance to start, or even won't start, and you hear the starter helplessly trying to start the engine, and after 5 or more secs you see that engine can't be started? Depends on the engine's "health". If engine is >75% repaired, it starts normally. If it is <75% but >50%, It would have an random chance to not start, or start in 2.5 secs. If it is <50% but >25%, it will have a higher chance to not start, or start in 4 secs. If it is <25% but >0%, it will not start. Each time when the engine is not starting, you would hear the starter trying to start the engine. And fuel tanks would have an % of fuel dripping, depending on it's health, using the percentages above. A vehicle won't be drivable if hull is destroyed, I don't see a reason a vehicle would go boom when fueltank or engine are on 0% health, but would still not go boom. Stuff would be retrievable from it, like engine, fueltank, wheels and your stuff.

[yarex 11]

1. Not be able to start the engine of car if you dont have keys from it. On first spawn, car would have keys inside (or somewhere nearby) and some left locked, some unlocked, but keys would be stored in inventory and used to unlock / lock the car.

However, it would be possible to start the car using some kind of wiring device and perhaps a screwdriver obtained as a loot. Opening a locked car and starting in that case would always take some time (unlike starting with a key).

Things from car / trunk could be stolen - but again, if car/trunk was locked - windows would have to be smashed (so would have to be repaired back)

or screwdriver used to open the trunk - again would take some time / risk.

Once the doors would be opened with screwdriver, cars trunk and doors would not be lockable until hull fully repaired.

2. Mobile phones could be linked to some kind of subquest - where you would have to "free from zombies" and FIX the transmitting tower in order to have cellphones working in the whole country.

Rogue players would have also ability to destroy it again.

More suchas fixable / destroyable things would bring playability and immersion to the game.

(another tower could provide GPS signal and again would hav eto be fixed and could be destroyed, different tower/device radio signal and ability to transmit for players to with turned on personal radios or car radios,.... )

3. Zombies - They are basically undead - would be killable only by headshot or massive damage. (in that case new zombie would spawn lets say in about 20 minutes)

BUT normal shots would just stop it or slow it down - make it incapable for 1-10 minutes and then regenerated back. Zombies would return to it's base location after some time if there wouldnt be anything to attract them.

4. Zombified ANIMALS - there is no reason why only humans should be zombified by infection. Why not having zombified bear, dog, cow......

Edited September 14, 2012 by yarex

[Z__Z 0]

Hi i got 2 combined Sugestions:

1. Climb able trees
   Like a ladder climbable but not able to shoot from
   
2. Save Logout Places
   To counter the altf4 problem and to add realism adds penalty
   Suggestions : Fireplace Houses TREES Deerstands Vehicles
   

Explanation why:

Everybody could climb a tree and would be relatively save from predators and even zambies so it would add to teh realism of the mod and would add to tactics and gamemechanics and it should be easy to implement in the alpha if you just define trees as ladders.Make the trees like a ladder would also mean that you cant shoot from it and it possibly couldnt be abused as a bandit sniper heaven.

With trees as place where zambies cant get you, it would be possible to make a way more dangerous environment (animals hordes of zombies etc) and that would be good. Because i´d like to see way more cooperative gameplay and i think this can only happen when u increase the threat of the zombies etc so people are forced to cooperate to survive ... i think that would be more fun to play for everybody. It would just make the game harder ... and now the z´s are more or less just anoying ... and no real thread in is this setting as it should be.

Also it would be a really exposed position where you cannot flee. So its sole purpose would be a defensive position for new spawns and as a save logout place.

So the save logout system could be used to counter the altf4 problem with a penalty of a maybe 30 sec LOOTABLE character if not logged out in a save place.

The idea is to make the char not killable but to be able to loose all the nice stuff which hurts more imho. So if a player altf4 ´rs out of a fight the hunter will still get the loot and the escapist will be punished. But if your game or computer crashes etc and nobody is around to loot you you wont loose anything.

And in combination with climbable trees would be nearly perfectly easy as a save logout place because you find them everywhere.

Conclusion:

With this two changes the game could be made much harder without breaking it for the new spawns and this mod beeing a alpha i think this should be tried if it works as intended to force people to cooperative gameplay and not to shoot and loot as it is now. This would although make the interaction between players and the whole social mechanics of the game way more intense. As it should and would be in a zambie apocalypse.

If you want to discuss this i started this idea on reddit so if you like to bash or find it interesting feel free to invest time ... http://www.reddit.co...climbing_trees/ there.

yours

ps: and we need a flamethrower in the game :D

Edited September 14, 2012 by Z__Z

[zombiejun 13]

Post this once the game is actually on track to be standalone, and not while it's still in alpha. You're jumping the gun kind of a lot.

"On track" to be standalone? A creator of this mid/game has said the game will be out before the end of 2012, so cirtainly is on track to be a game.

[Benderz of Hell 3]

1. Not be able to start the engine of car if you dont have keys from it. On first spawn, car would have keys inside (or somewhere nearby) and some left locked, some unlocked, but keys would be stored in inventory and used to unlock / lock the car.

However, it would be possible to start the car using some kind of wiring device and perhaps a screwdriver obtained as a loot. Opening a locked car and starting in that case would always take some time (unlike starting with a key).

I've seen a lot of people talk about using keys to get into cars, and I don't think it's really a good idea at all. DayZ is trying to be as real as possible, but doing small things like this is just taking it way too far. What if someone stumbles upon a fresh car without wheels, is unable to fix it, so they just take the car keys and dash? Each car would have to have it's own unique set of keys (which will most likely never happen). What happens when someone with a jingly key ring stumbles upon a camp? They didn't find the vehicles originally, but they have the slick path to stealing the vehicles. You could still jack them without the keys, but it would be easier if you had the ring of em.

I can just imagine the trolling.. A random and his bud find the almighty car camp. The owners of the camp leave the car keys in the ignition because it would require quite the amount of bagspace to carry all those keys. The randoms decide that their fresh and empty backpacks will be more than enough to hold all those shiny keys, so they take them and drive off in a vehicle of choice. Owners come back, and now they have the only vehicles in the server, and the location of their keys are beyond them.

Besides, games like Battlefield don't require you to have keys for vehicles. I realize BF isn't trying to be as realistic as DayZ, just trying to make some sort of relation.

Edited September 14, 2012 by Dr. Do You In

[OmegaWeapon 3]

What if you could move dead bodies and possibly hang them from trees to scare others out of an area

[darquan 9]

WE NEED A CHAINSAW. Period.

[[ZD] Insertcoins 46]

Being able to run and throw stuff (flares, grenades etc) at the same time.

[fluxley 2228]

WE NEED A CHAINSAW. Period.

and a sawn off shotgun!