100 hour review of DayZ

[mind_grenade 24]

For starters; I'm just throwing my feedback on the pile. Not trying to whinge, complain, what-have-you. Just adding my honest feedback after 100 hours on this mod. Most people jump on after 2 hours and give a review.

It started out great, what with all the hype (I started around 1.5.8, mid-May) on the gaming sites. Was great fun, a refreshing experience. Hard to learn (new to the engine), but slightly rewarding. It wasn't long before I was able to gear up quite consistently. Once you get the infected behaviour down, it's pretty straight forward. I stuck to barns and deer stands off the beaten path to NWAF, then geared there and kept exploring. My average lifetime was around 10-15 hours for the first half or so.

I then had my stint of hanging around Cherno, which began as exhilarating, given all the tension and unknown of player interaction. A lot of new players came in, and it removed a lot of the mystery as most people would shoot even if you posed no threat (as we all know verrrrry well if you ever read anything on these forums). This made high-pop areas quite boring, especially coastal towns, given the zero-fucks-given mentality of freshspawns.

In the last 50 or so hours I died maybe 3-4 times. Mostly just due to impatience in high-risk spots like NWAF, Stary etc.

After I die I lose interest for a few days. This is partially due to my personality, but I think it also gives way to why I believe this mod may be lacking in replayability in the grand scheme.

Once you get good at gearing, and you die, the punishment for me was not losing my stuff (I honestly have the most fun with just a Winny or a crossbow over AS50's and NVG's etc), but the inevitable boredom of getting off the coast. It takes a good 1 1/2 hours just to get back off there. And once you've done it a good few times, it just gets old. The last few times I died was not "oh no my gear" it was "oh no my time". I like to play games for hours but life does not always allow. And having to do a running simulator for 2 hours after you do avoiding bugs to get back to having decent gear again is just boring.

Don't get me wrong, I loved playing this game, but respawns just get old, really fast. I like the punishment of losing my character and all my gear and perma-death, because fuck yeah, I got attached to that shit and losing it made shit real... but I don't like the inevitable boredom of running. I'm just glad I have a Logitech G510 so I can put a macro set to autorun and go make some tea or get my giblets wet while Pvt. Dickface runs his tits off to Stary.

The other flaw is the playerbase, which you can't really flaw the dev's for, but they really need to add more incentive to do something other than PvP/murder. People often say "make your own game", and I have, I've been the medic, Robin Hood (some HAPPY players that receive Urals and GAZ's for just being kind, haha), raiding camps up north, given random people vehicles, tons of stuff. I can't really think of many things I haven't done in this game, and it doesn't matter who you are because this game simply revolves around PvP in it's current state, and nothing an individual does will change that. Again, PvP is a beautiful and very fun dynamic in this game, but when it's just about the only thing to do the whole mod just suffers.

My suggestion with the game in its current state would be to make non-military "endgame" loot (such as cars) much more accessible to newbies and coast-dwellers... and everyone, and make guns rarer. Cars are so rare (why, I'm not sure. It does add value, but could you imagine Pokemon if you only got a bicycle right near the end?). I didn't see my first one for about 17 hours. They should be sooo much more accessible, and common. Especially for new coast-dwellers. Take away the boredom of Running Simulator 2012. I think much more common vehicles and less guns would change the dynamic up quite a bit. It's alpha, TRY different things, not this odd tweaky business. In my time as the Robin Hood, we followed and watched what some of the clueless nubs we gave vehicles to, and it was so much more interesting than the current state. People that get cars currently are usually vets, and then they drive them an hour up into the hills and do... nothing with them. Cars are currently so rare no one wants to do anything with them for fear of loss and they just get stashed, which is insanely boring. At least make the smaller vehicles with little storage space and purely for transport more common.

So yeah, gratz if you actually read it. It was a fun game, but there is really just nothing to do in it any more. I've had a great time, and won't be uninstalling in case there's a big update with generators and floodlights and player-controlled areas, or something that would spice the dynamic up (not bear traps. That's probably the dumbest addition there could be... no offense haha), but yeah. It's out for me for now (this isn't one of those weird threats, again, I'm just adding my honest feedback). Thanks for your time.

P.S I have seen *****1***** hacker in 100 hours. In my 98th hour the whole server was teleported to debug plains and turned into a dog. Meh. Must've been lucky.

[tsandrey 379]

Great game, but has some problems (yeah I know it's in Alpha state bla bla):

-sloppy animations

-overpowered Zombies

-Broken leg system sucks

[libertine (DayZ) 2]

lol@TSAndrey

overpowered zombies ? really ? if anything there should be more of them and they should be harder to kill(headshot)

if you're having problems with broken legs then you just didnt prepare, morphine is your friend. I wont do anything without at least having 2 morphine injectors on me.

[thehumandove 344]

I agree about the vehicles. Most people are fucking retarded with them and you never see them outside of their secret stash. I have yet to sit in anything but a bike seat.

[Macenzie 79]

I'm all for zombies being stronger if their animations and movements wern't so erratic.

I'd like to be able to hit them more reliably first before they are tougher.

[Macenzie 79]

I agree about the vehicles. Most people are fucking retarded with them and you never see them outside of their secret stash. I have yet to sit in anything but a bike seat.

The problem with vehicles is that at the moment, hackers are having a maverlous time teleporting them about.

We'd use our cars more but at the moment they keep vanishing (before our eyes)

[johis69 2]

Excellent and educated review. I have only seen one tractor during maybe 25-40h of gameplay and it was obviously a trap. I definately agree about the vehicles, although I tend to be a bit "the chase is better than the catch" type of guy, so I don't mind running for hours that much. I will probably get bored doing it though..

[KEEPCARLM 146]

I agree with most of your sentiments to be fair. I think there needs to be something to strive for once you have all these amazing weapons and stuff. I just don't know what.

[GeneralMcCain 2]

Good review. Vehicles actually available to non-groupies (people in teams have lots of time on their hands) could shake things up a bit. I enjoy lone wolf playing at the moment, but am really only where you were around hour 17-20, gathering some more equipment and then exploring north and avoiding the airfield.

I have yet to experience lots more interaction, using vehicles, and conducting raids. But after that, it runs out of steam. I guess those are the limits. Look at Minecraft. I played it heavily during early pre-beta, but the endgame aspect was not interesting to me. I just liked exploring and building and defending. When I tired of that, I stopped playing it. I couldn't care less about netherworld, dragons, or whatever. Skyrim is for that..

Not sure how this game could be made more imaginative without resorting to fantasy elements. But why do that to DayZ, when you could just play another game? Other people need to start building similar mods independently, such as one where you are exploring an Arctic world without any monsters/zombies/boogiemen, just simulated ecosystems and player interaction (with few weapons). That is what I would like to do, if I had the time!!!

[mind_grenade 24]

Aw great, some actual cohesive, well thought out replies :)

Excellent and educated review. I have only seen one tractor during maybe 25-40h of gameplay and it was obviously a trap. I definately agree about the vehicles, although I tend to be a bit "the chase is better than the catch" type of guy, so I don't mind running for hours that much. I will probably get bored doing it though..

I am DEFINITELY a chase is better type guy, hence why I played 100 hours, and why I was always looking for topend loot that I had no idea what I was going to do with as I'm not a big PvP guy.

I agree about the vehicles. Most people are fucking retarded with them and you never see them outside of their secret stash. I have yet to sit in anything but a bike seat.

Yep. The current problem with vehicles is because they are as rare as hen's teeth no-one wants to lose them and they become treasure chest up in the hills. Serving no purpose other than being some kind of boring trophy for clans that find them or know the spawns. I think if vehicles were more common people would actually use them in interesting ways and they would actually add to the dynamic instead of just being a bragging right.

[SlickShoes 21]

lol@TSAndrey

overpowered zombies ? really ? if anything there should be more of them and they should be harder to kill(headshot)

if you're having problems with broken legs then you just didnt prepare, morphine is your friend. I wont do anything without at least having 2 morphine injectors on me.

yeah the zombies are not hard, but the way that they move/teleport around, run through solid objects, knock you out with one it, make you bleed with one hit makes no sense.

I think the zombies should be HARD but they can't really make them hard until they fix the other issues, sitting in a supermarket and the zombies just walk in through the wall, then through the inner wall, then through the counter, then through the aisles.

Once the zombie AI is not broken it will be better.