DayZ: A neat game with no endgame

[Glythe 7]

I'm enjoying playing Dayz but I think it needs some serious improvement if it ever wants to become a real game. Yes it is an alpha and I realize that but there are some glaring holes in the gameplay. That being said I'd like to offer a few suggestions.

1) Zombies need to be more of a threat than other survivors.

After you've survived to day 3 or longer you pretty much can't lose this game except to another player. That's kind of garbage when you think about what that does for end game play. End game play becomes hunting for better gear which often entails shooting other players. Other players collect gear you probably want so why bother going to look for it? As countless others have said there is no reason I should NOT shoot you when I see you. That means somewhere along the line you've failed as a designer (don't worry there are ways to fix it).

How do you make zombies more dangerous? The obvious solution there is to allow players to play zombies. I get the sense the spirit of this game was that survivors were not primarily designed to kill each other. Letting people play as zombies is a good way to encourage people to kill other survivors when they are a zombie and let them go when they are a fellow survivor. Mechanically speaking Arma is setup to have the zombies be hostile civilians. Just have zombie players join that team. If a player zombie gets numerous suvrivor kills he could perhaps rank up or get new powers (unrealistic perhaps but it IS a video game right). At the least he could be promoted to a zombie lieutenant with all the powers that grants in arma. That's right.... let players command AI zombies. Now that is a scary thought. People will want to play zombies and people will want to kill zombies. The result is more people want to play the game. Zombie players should be marked with a green square next to their name on the player list.

Obviously we need aso need a larger variety of zombies. I'm just going to list a few suggestions:

a] Zombie mouth foamer: has an infectious bite that deals damage over the course of a day (maybe 1000 dmg initially and 1000 damage daily until cured by antibiotics).

b] Zombie screamer: lets have a female zombie shall we not? She yells in a hideous zombie scream if you aggro her and that scream will call ALL the nearby zombies (200m).

c] Zombie brute: built like a tank he can get shot 20-30 times and not die but 3 bullets in the head will stop him.

d] Zombie charger: he runs faster than other zombies and will knock you over when he hits you. To compensate for this this attack must be very slow (maybe every 20 seconds).

2) Banditry needs to have consequences.

I'm going to suggest that anyone who has more than 5 survivor kills (maybe 10) should be placed on the red team. They would have a red square on their name on the player list. Ideally you would have to do something to learn they are a bandit (such as look at the corpse of someone he killed but Arma can't do that as far as I know). That would of course be the superior option to have people permanently be labeled as bandits (red name when you look at them) if you examine a corpse shot by another player. On this line I suggest that we have player killer notices enabled as a default. It makes for a more interesting experience.

I'd like to have perhaps 3 permanent soldier stations on the map that will shoot at bandits. It shouldn't be anything too brutal but I think the squad should be at least 8-10 soldiers (at least 1 sniper, 2 MG, 1 officer, 1-2 medics ). This gives bandits something to do.... you can kill the soldiers for guns instead of other players. There should also be random soldier squads that spawn probably 4-6 soldiers (officer with NVG, MG, sniper in ghillie suit, medic, and the extras would be riflemen). They roam across the map and shoot zombies and bandit players if they see them. They spawn in at any of a number of points and just walk across the map hunting hostiles. Arma is well suited to handle such scripts. You can even spawn in a squad of 4 soldiers in a Humvee that players could steal (soldiers should have a habit of getting out to kill zombies).

Now you have a situation where Bandit players have something to do (and a new thing to do... watch out for soldiers!). There are "players" that survivors can trust (unless you shoot a member of their squad) and you have new ways to get loot. Along the same line there should be random bandit spawns. They should have more bandit like gear.... enfields, shotguns, etc but be larger groups overall. A bandit roaming spawn should be 6-10 enemies and a static bandit element should only be 4 enemies (because bandits double cross each other). Note you cannot become friendly to bandits! Bandits should have large stores of food and water and general supermaket supplies. Instead of rading 5-10 supermakets you could just attack a bandit group instead. Maybe give each bandit a guaranteed: axe, knife, compass, map, matches or watch. You can even spawn 1 bandit in the bigger cities as well.... but he only kills survivors, bandits, and zombie players. The big loot from the bandits of course would be the all black outfit (shouldn't be too hard to implement if it isn't already there). And then you'd have people wearing black suits and black bandannas (or maybe even old timey black bandit masks). There would be no question... if you see a player wearing black you shoot them.

3) Don't have all the best loot in the same place.

The only real place to go once you have gear is to the airfield if you want better stuff......BORING! You could do all sorts of neat things with this game. Take one castle and have a zombie hoarde event. Arma can handle scripts for this too. Every so often have the event trigger when a player gets close to the castle. Spawn in 60-80 zombies to attack a group of 5 soldiers in the castle. The soldiers will almost surely die. The question is can the player clear them out to get the loot from the bodies of the zombies/soldiers? Right now everyone will just build their compound up north because that's where the good gear spawns. Once again this would be boring.

On that note shouldn't there be a few alive soldiers at the airfield?

4) Arma as a walking simulator is extremely boring.

People hoard vehicles and it ruins the experience for others. I've looked up where all the vehicles have spawned and other than a bike I've never seen one. Why? Because people immediately take them to other places for their personal use. I really like whoever made the suggestion before that repairable vehicles should be more common and gasoline should be the rarity.

5) Loading takes way too long (self explanitory no paragraph needed)

Ok those are my thoughts about your game. It's a nice effort as is but there's no way it will continue to be viable in its current form. There is a reason people are getting bored. It's not because you can't build bases yet.... there isn't enough to do in game that doesn't revolve around killing other players.

Edited July 20, 2012 by Glythe

[idunc 62]

[M O N S T E R 599]

This makes kittens cry.

-MONSTER

[Alfwich (DayZ) 14]

1, 2:

Interesting ideas but this reeks of a complete disregard for the game at hand. There is no room for any sort of armed 'guardians' in a zombie SURVIVAL game.

Banditry should not have any severe consequences; It's your choice to trust people or not.

3,4,5:

Agreed.

[sixbarns 217]

Nah.

Good post though.

[idunc 62]

[A Classy Emu 24]

I applaud you for typing out a long, detailed paragraph. But I disagree with pretty much everything you said.

[Glythe 7]

There is little point of saying NOOOOOOOO in a nice video if you don't say why.

Right now there is no reason to keep playing this game. I can log in to LOTS of different servers at the barracks and pray for something good. But there is nothing to do but hunt other players. This isn't really a good format for that as I stated (no vehicles)

OR in the same time I could just go make my own Arma missions. I have 4 friends who bought this game just to play zombies.....

bear in mind I've made arma missions that last 4 hours+ minimum to complete (don't ask how long they took to make).

Essentially the end game of Day Z is less than 1% chance at a good drop. That's not an end game mechanic thats a hamster turning on a wheel.

I feel certain in about 2 weeks my friends will stop playing Day Z. And then maybe I'll start writing missions again.

[Glythe 7]

I applaud you for typing out a long, detailed paragraph. But I disagree with pretty much everything you said.

You may as well not post then as you don't even take the effort to explain why you disagree. I'd like to hear your thoughts. I would like to hear you tell me why people would keep playing a game with nothing to do at the top end.

In about 30 minutes I can create a decent Arma mission. With 2-3 hours I can make a masterpiece that people want to play MULTIPLE times (and rotate them with my other missions).

[nicraM 137]

OP is a mook.

[Valec 55]

Right now there is no reason to keep playing this game. I can log in to LOTS of different servers at the barracks and pray for something good. But there is nothing to do but hunt other players. This isn't really a good format for that as I stated (no vehicles)

Not sure why it's a problem for you, I greatly enjoy hunting other players. I'm not sure what you expect in a multiplayer sandbox game.

[Brother Biscuit 4]

While you are correct that DayZ can get somewhat tiresome with a lack of an end game, ideas 1,2, and 4 are completely awful. Idea 3 is agreeable, and idea 5 isn't really that much of an issue.

[red_orchestra@msn.com 112]

I agree with the few lines that I bothered to read. Hope the rest was as good.

[Glythe 7]

1, 2:

Interesting ideas but this reeks of a complete disregard for the game at hand. There is no room for any sort of armed 'guardians' in a zombie SURVIVAL game.

Right because trained soldiers with automatic weapons would totally survive longer than 1 person with no weapons , no gear and no food. Did you not get the implied hint that they would be extremely rare? You can't just run into them all over the place.

Banditry should not have any severe consequences; It's your choice to trust people or not.

You're caught in the same loop as everyone else.

I see a player I don't want him to kill me.

Therefore I kill him.

I keep doing this until I get killed.

Soldiers who attack bandits would break this loop. Bandits can go kill soldiers for loot. But bandits must watch out for soldiers. It creates more things for you to do in the game. It creates a more dynamic game play experience.

Until there is a reason for a break in the loop that loop will continue.

Talk about going against the design of the game.... a clan is exactly that. I can automatically trust you , you , you and you. Everyone else I shoot. There's a ton of better platforms for killing other players. An endgame of 1% rare loot spawns that you obtain by running 4+ km isn't really worth repeating multiple times. Maybe it is for you, but I have much better games to play.

Not sure why it's a problem for you, I greatly enjoy hunting other players. I'm not sure what you expect in a multiplayer sandbox game.

You're making the sandbox far too small friend. It could be so much bigger and so much more interesting with the tools that are already availalbe in Arma.

You probably think I have a problem with player killing. But I don't. What I do have a problem with is that the current sandbox has about 3 things to do: get basic gear, go north get better gear, kill players.

Random soldier spawns would break up the monotony and so would random bandits. Adding these two things would give you more things to do: avoid soldiers/bandits, raid soldiers/bandits and help the soldiers at a zombie hoard event.

Mc Donalds used to have two kinds of burgers.... cheeseburgers and hamburgers. If you didn't like pickles mustard onions and ketchup then you were out of luck. This is by the way why Burger King exists... they gave you an option to have it your way.

Given the option to have more in the game you're basically saying, No I like my small sandbox thanks. I don't want an option to refuse ketchup on my burger.

Sure this game has had 700,000 players becuase lots of people own Arma already. But the bottom line is that with the vast majoirty of the content being running around waiting for loot to spawn you're going to have a hard time selling the retail version of this game.

Edited July 20, 2012 by Glythe

[M O N S T E R 599]

You may as well not post then as you don't even take the effort to explain why you disagree. I'd like to hear your thoughts. I would like to hear you tell me why people would keep playing a game with nothing to do at the top end.

In about 30 minutes I can create a decent Arma mission. With 2-3 hours I can make a masterpiece that people want to play MULTIPLE times (and rotate them with my other missions).

You only have the ability to made those decent and master-pacific missions because of the way Arma is built. Now then, remember that THIS ISN'T ARMA. Nor is it being developed by the bloody team!

Why don't you go and give Rocket your resume, get recruited and sort this shit out yourself then? Your ideals are just that - ideals.

You may think you're the first person to come up with these ideas, but I could probably point out a few people off the top of my head who have already been through this crap before.

Day Z is Day Z, not an optimized triple-A title (those of which STILL get bitched about, people are never fucking happy).

Instead of deciding what would make a game better, enjoy it for what it is. Or don't - just leave without a word if it's the latter. Not like we're begging you to stay.

-MONSTER

[KrystoferRobin 67]

I'm enjoying playing Dayz but I think it needs some serious improvement if it ever wants to become a real game. Yes it is an alpha and I realize that but there are some glaring holes in the gameplay. That being said I'd like to offer a few suggestions.

1) Zombies need to be more of a threat than other survivors. No. The infected are the catalyst, not the threat. I would agree with making them a bit more difficult overall, as it takes 4-5 minutes tops to get a hatchet and then they are of no consequence short of astronomical bad luck, or poor choices.

Obviously we need aso need a larger variety of zombies. I'm just going to list a few suggestions:

a] Zombie mouth foamer: Nope

b] Zombie screamer: We already have screaming, shrieking infected. It's called all of them. Should it draw more? I think so.

c] Zombie brute: Nope

d] Zombie charger: Nope

2) Banditry needs to have consequences.

In no way should any playstyle be punished. It could be argued that with the rampant KoS trend, that survivors are being punished as things stand now. that however, is not the topic at hand.

3) Don't have all the best loot in the same place.

On this, I agree. But it isn't all in the same place. Heli wrecks and deerstands yeild equal and better loot, and are scattered pretty much everywhere.

On that note shouldn't there be a few alive soldiers at the airfield? Perhaps there are, but people KoS them as well, for their lewts. Point made, IF there were, they wouldn't live long.

4) Arma as a walking simulator is extremely boring

If you spend all your time in the woods, I can agree. But that's your choice, not a design flaw.

5) Loading takes way too long (self explanitory no paragraph needed)

Upgrade your rig. The game loads quite reasonably (about 8 seconds for me) so long as you don't get stuck waiting to create character, which is a server > db issue I believe.

Ok those are my thoughts about your game. It's a nice effort as is but there's no way it will continue to be viable in its current form. There is a reason people are getting bored. It's not because you can't build bases yet.... there isn't enough to do in game that doesn't revolve around killing other players.

Grow a pair of balls and stop trying to mask your butthurt about bandits with overly long, unoriginal posts and suggestions to turn DayZ into fucking L4D.

Talk about going against the design of the game.... a clan is exactly that. I can automatically trust you , you , you and you. Everyone else I shoot. There's a ton of better platforms for killing other players. An endgame of 1% rare loot spawns that you obtain by running 4+ km isn't really worth repeating multiple times. Maybe it is for you, but I have much better games to play.

And you're still here why?

Edited July 20, 2012 by KrystoferRobin

[orb917@hotmail.com 117]

responding in order:

this isn't supposed to be a game unless rocket has changed his objectives. it's supposed to be an experiment and antigame that does something different from every other game out there, so that addresses whether or not it wants to become a real game.

1.) end game play only becomes hunting for better gear if that's all you can think of to do. other people have found other self made objectives to complete beyond gear.

one of the major philosophical motivations behind this mod (as best as i could tell at least) is that the developer should not hold the players hand and dictate how they play the mod, what their objectives are, etc. if you're bored once you have all teh phat lootz, it's your responsibility to alleviate that boredom somehow, not the developers job to hard code objectives into the mod.

players as zombies has been thought about and last i knew it was outside of the scope of the project.

2.) banditry will never be punished.

adding AI soldiers would take resources away from other things, like handling more players per server or more zombies per server. i also don't really want the world populated by npcs that favor one playstyle (bandits vs survivors) over another.

3.) i think having all the good military loot in only a couple spots around the map does a good job of drawing players towards those areas. it makes these areas unsafe and increases tension and paranoia in these areas significantly.

i wouldn't mind seeing huge hordes pop up every now and then, but again, i'm not so keen on the AI soldiers.

4.) i'm neutral on this as i haven't thought it through too deeply. would make sense i suppose, depending on how far in time we are from z day. not sure how it would affect resource allocation though, i believe there was some technical difficulties with vehicles in the past.

5.) load times seem to vary for me from server to server. faster is always better though.

and finally, if you're bored and all you can find to do is kill players, perhaps you should try something different? perhaps you could try helping people instead of killing them?

[idunc 62]

You want consequences for bandits? Kill them. The game doesn't punish bandits, you do.

You want endgame? Join a clan and run some missions with them, such as raiding the airfield or Cherno or something. Join a medic team and respond to people's cries for help. If you've created all these missions, then implement them into DayZ. They don't have to be coded into the game, just make them up in your mind.

This game gives you the tools to create your own story, your own endgame. You just have to know how to use those tools.

[asbrazier@gmail.com 9]

Every time I see someone say it has no "End Game" I'm sick a little bit in my mouth.

MAKE YOUR OWN END GAME!!!!

I've had every item this game has to offer and I'm still having a fucking blast.

[fundan@gmx.de 82]

Stopped reading where it says - 2) Banditry needs to have consequences.

[Dr. Toros 8]

You want consequences for bandits? Kill them. The game doesn't punish bandits, you do.

You want endgame? Join a clan and run some missions with them, such as raiding the airfield or Cherno or something. Join a medic team and respond to people's cries for help. If you've created all these missions, then implement them into DayZ. They don't have to be coded into the game, just make them up in your mind.

This game gives you the tools to create your own story, your own endgame. You just have to know how to use those tools.

People who say the game gives you the tools are out of their mind. No, this game doesn't give you a whole lot of things. It doesn't artificially restrict you, is the best it has to offer.

Imagine there was no forum and no teamspeak/ventrillo/etc. Day Z would be unplayable in groups. Clans couldn't form.

Don't credit day Z with things that it hasn't done.

[s.taylor.75@gmail.com 23]

Nice coherent post OP, but so off the mark on everything you said. The game isn't for everybody, Rocket knows this and he isn't like most other Devs who will cater to carebears. I think you probably should just play another game.

[idunc 62]

People who say the game gives you the tools are out of their mind. No, this game doesn't give you a whole lot of things. It doesn't artificially restrict you, is the best it has to offer.

Imagine there was no forum and no teamspeak/ventrillo/etc. Day Z would be unplayable in groups. Clans couldn't form.

Don't credit day Z with things that it hasn't done.

Well, fortunately there is. If those things didn't exist, I'm sure games would be implementing them themselves. But they aren't necessary to include in a game since they do exist. Your argument is invalid.

Please explain how the tools are not provided? You want bandits to have consequences? Grab a weapon and kill him. Don't make the game do it for you. You want some endgame content? Grab a group of guys and raid an airfield, a town, a city. You will most definitely get in a firefight. Form a camp with your newly acquired fortunes. Join a medic group and wonder Chernarus helping people stay alive for one more day. What else do you expect out of a zombie apocalypse?

[Glythe 7]

responding in order:

this isn't supposed to be a game unless rocket has changed his objectives. it's supposed to be an experiment and antigame that does something different from every other game out there, so that addresses whether or not it wants to become a real game.

I'd say he has succeeded this is definitely half a game.

1.) end game play only becomes hunting for better gear if that's all you can think of to do. other people have found other self made objectives to complete beyond gear.

Ok you have half a point here and I'll counter by saying.... tell me one thing besides the creepy zombie aspect that you can do better in this game than you could just by playing Arma. Medic? nope. Kill other players? nope. Driving/flying around the countryside? nope. Snipers shooting at you from 400m+ is damn scary when you're playing a soldier sim. They may not be zombies but they can have the same resulting fear.

2.) banditry will never be punished.

adding AI soldiers would take resources away from other things, like handling more players per server or more zombies per server. i also don't really want the world populated by npcs that favor one playstyle (bandits vs survivors) over another.

And here you are confused. I said it would have consequences not be punished. Killing players would cause soldiers to shoot you on site. That would be a choice you make for becoming a bandit. It isn't a punishment because you can kill soldiers for loot. It isn't a punishment because you still get loot from dead players. It gives you something to do as bandit (this is drastically needed).

Having consequences is not the same thing as punishment.

3.) i think having all the good military loot in only a couple spots around the map does a good job of drawing players towards those areas. it makes these areas unsafe and increases tension and paranoia in these areas significantly.

i wouldn't mind seeing huge hordes pop up every now and then, but again, i'm not so keen on the AI soldiers.

So we're back to go here kill any players you see and pickup the loot. And you seem to imply this game had depth?

4.) i'm neutral on this as i haven't thought it through too deeply. would make sense i suppose, depending on how far in time we are from z day. not sure how it would affect resource allocation though, i believe there was some technical difficulties with vehicles in the past.

Vehicles cost about 8x as many resources as one soldier zombie (more complex vehicles require more resources of course). Imagine the difference between a world where you say kill him he is a survivor vs.... kill him he's taking the last of the gas from that tanker. Or kill him he has gas cans.

and finally, if you're bored and all you can find to do is kill players, perhaps you should try something different? perhaps you could try helping people instead of killing them?

I didn't say all I can find to do is kill players. But that is what apparently 90% of the people who play this game seem to want to do. I've offered people help (food/blood/etc) and usually they either run if they don't see me or shoot back if they do.

Going back to the idea of consequences don't you think it would shift the I see you I kill you attitude if there were npc soldiers with guns? It might make the atmosphere less "internety" in the sense that you can currendly do whatever you say or what and no one can really do anything about it.

[Michaelvoodoo25 3120]

DayZ is like The Empire Strikes Back, The bad guys win!!

What I'm beginning to see is a lot of People who have Ideas, yet, don't see the Simplicity of DayZ. From the day of installing the Mod I knew it was a survival game, it ends when you die. To implement a lot of the ideas would take time and a lot more people working on the Mod / final "thing" I am an impatient alien and I am already waiting for the final "thing" please dont give Rocket any more ideas as I want a final product (as do many)

Some of your ideas are turning this into an arcade type of game, Foaming Zombies? why? If you have got to a certain point where you have done it all, got the T shirt, move onto something else or design and build a mod that suits your style more comfortably.

This is DayZ and you are part of what happens and when it happens. If there is something in game you don't like change it, try and reach 1000 dead zeds, kill all bandits, kill all survivors. The Mod has only just begun for limitless ways to play. You will have dogs soon (I don't know??) that will add a new direction, imagine your at the NWAF and a zed has just twatted your leg bone, "oi lassie, hospital, Electro, Morphine" off it goes.

This is far from End game!