Vehicle solution

[Hario 4]

Problem: vehicles are as rare as hens teeth, and a favorite item to hoard

Solutions:alter some vehicle characteristics, and introduce some new (crappier) vehicles

I think there are some nice offroad vehicles in this game, e.g. the dirt bike and jeeps. Keep them as they are but make the town cars and road biased vehicles so terrible offroad that to hide one in the forest would be the most tedious act ever.

i have seen suggestions for adding things like scooters, other old motorbikes would suit too. put these in and make them dangerous and pointlessly slow offroad, also make them spawn in a decent (but perhaps not perfect) condition. you could also make them have no storage and be unsavable so they reset fairly often.

The idea is to have rare vehicles that people can hoard and cherish, and can be seen once in a blue moon, but also to have other common vehicles that stay in constant circulation and aren't such a valuable commodity that people have to selfishly hide them. this would also give players more to do and more to fight over.

The rare chances i have had to use vehicles in DayZ have been fantastic, and it is a real shame that people can't enjoy them more. Plus it doesn't seem to add any to realism, rural soviet towns are rife with old bangers and bikes there is no reason they should disappear when zombies show up.

Driving a large bus 3km up a forested mountain on the other hand, is a pretty unrealistic survival tactic IMHO.

What do you think?

[Tiercel 63]

You ever tried driving the GAZ (civillian car) offroad? :/ it already IS tedious and difficult, top speed of like 8kph off road, you can run faster.

I disagree with this, if you dont suck its not too hard to find vehicles, its just a matter of hunting them down. Sure the map is a big place, but team up with a few friends, study the map and topography, figure out where camps are likely to be (have to be mostly flat to erect tents, dense trees to hide vehicles, cant be too steep or vehicles will roll downhill etc). Once you know what to look for its not too hard.

[drseptapus 49]

I think this is a great idea/great first post. I think it would be important to make the distinction between mountainous forest region and flat plains. You should be able to drive on flat areas of grass with reduced mobility but it shouldn't be too difficult, but once you get into the wilderness it should be damn near impossible.

Oh man bandits would be so much cooler if they ran you off the road and stole all your shit.

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

The best way to deal with rare vehicles is to blow them up if you find a hoarder. It's fun too.

[Hario 4]

Thanks for your replies.

I see what you are saying about hoarder locations, but i find searching for clan camps boring and not immersive. If you enjoy doing these things you still could, but you would be looking at their ATV and Jeeps, not a parking lot of every vehicle.

Also if i steal a vehicle from one of these camps i (and anyone else) am going to want to hang onto it, the logical result being i move it to another piece of wood.

The aim of my suggestions is to remove the incentive to hoard (some of) them, so you may jump on a scooter to get from A to B, but you would then just ditch it and carry on your way. If you did want to hide it, it would reset with the server. There would be no point.

I would hope this would add a fun new element to the game, and keep things interesting. It would make highly mobile survivors have a nice gameplay presence too. Imagine you are going to loot a building and you hear a scooter put-putting along, jump in a bush and have to wait for him to pass (or steal it). It would remind you that other players are actually around, but without getting you sniped in the face :P

Also, something like a road-bound scooter/bike/car would be pretty damn vulnerable to gunfire, it would be risky to use one. You may find yourself just leaving it where it is and continuing on foot to keep your cover, but you would at least have the choice.

drseptapus, you make a good point. Perhaps cars would be useable in fields and 2 wheelers not? (with the obvious exception of the dirt bike).

[Turk (DayZ) 82]

Have an arbitrary amount / percentage of vehicles that respawn after 24hours regardless.

Maybe the Quad & Trials Bike & certainly the bicycle as these have little to no storage capacity.

For the non bike vehicles add a more gamey mechanic where the vehicle must be kept to a certain state of repair else it is respawned again after 24hours.

ie add engine probs (fixed with toolbox/scrap metal), add punctures so all 4 wheels must be inflatted (either a new wheel or repair & pump), Fuel Tank may leak (pierced by a crash/running over a zombie) so it becomes empty or if its empty from use, no fuel = respawn and lastly if the windscreen is broken (by crashes/running over a zombie), if any of these aren't "fixed" then vehicle is respawned.

Edited July 27, 2012 by Turk