Thoughts on DayZ

[cs_flame@hotmail.com 1]

Hiya, I've been playing for a month or so now and I'd like to share what I think of the mod and more specifically things that could make it better. From my lurking on the forums the biggest complaints seem to be PvP related or that the game is too easy without other players sniping you repeatadly. I haven't been playing long enough I think to understand everything, so feel free to tear it apart =)

First off: I love the pvp. If you see anything crawling in your vague direction it's always safer to shoot and ask questions later, it's realistic given the situation and makes you think quite a lot more about approaching good loot zones. The reason pvp is so prominent and decisive is that there's nothing to be gained from helping a stranger, and everything to lose. There's also nothing to do once you've aquired a bit of gear except horde it and kill players with less than you. If you band together you only horde more and murder other players more efficiently.

What I think DayZ needs is a goal, some overarching purpose to your playing it. Survival isn't a goal, I could get enough supplies and sit in the woods in 30 mins and just live there indefinitely. Player killing isn't challenging or rewarding once you have decent gear. High level firefights with multiple players can be fun but they can end in an instant and then you're back to square one. In the ZA the simplest thing is to reach uninfected civilizaition and "escape", if for example more zombies spawned the further north you went and at the tip there was an escape path with a horde guarding it....well something to do a couple times. If it's challenging enough players would be forced to tag team or better and not risk killing potential allies. Not that bandits are a bad part of the game, I like the dimention pure player killers add, but there needs to be less of them.

Other things you could aspire to do with the game is create teams of a sort, arguably this could be done regardless of server structure but as a kind of game mode: where there are 2 sets of survivors fighting over resources, 2 military stockpiles at both ends, limited weapons and a faster need for food/drink with a zombie infested town in between. Haven't really thought any of this out, just spit-balling.

The twin problems I currently have with the game are hackers and server hoppers. My friends hop servers all the time and I don't see how that adds to the gameplay at all. It's pretty much saying if I don't get what I want in this barn I'll just keep going in and out until what I want spawns. Not exactly realistic. What I hate even more is when they DC to avoid a zombie or another player, again, not the way it was intended I'm sure but even I do it occasionally in a panic over attattchment to my gear >.>

Simple solution to both is server loyalty and a timer to DC. If you disconnect via abort, it takes 10 seconds so you have to be somewhere safe when you decide to leave if you terminate the program your avatar will stand there for 10s and die. 10s isn't long, but if anything is on you or shooting at you, it won't save you. What I mean by server loyalty is that you stick to a small pool of servers and are penalised for joining multiple other ones in a short time-frame and rewarded in some way for sticking to one. For this to work there'd need to be some way in-game that you can protect anything that wasn't on you when you died, like burying a backpack with some spare rations and a handgun in the woods, not realistic but atm only clan hording keeps you on a server and only if you're part of that clan! There's no difference between an individual hiding something in the woods and a community looking after your excess loot. But more importantly take servers A B C D - if you're on A and you change to B there is no penalty if you've been on A for a set amount of time, if you change to C shortly after B you can't join the game for 5 minutes, and from D on the time simply increases.

The hackers I'm sure are just something you have to live with on a developing game, but something simple for the time being such as a report system would help. Assuming the game logs player data if pointed to a player name on a server someone could verify mass item spawns on a person and backpacks with -5 slots etc and do away with them quite quickly.

The military spawn points are always camped, and camped hard. I feel there should be more zeds around the locations, that they should require fighting (Smaller roaming radius?) and possibly for the larger drop areas more players to clear. At the moment it's too easy to go on an empty server, crawl past some zeds to some shiny red dots on the loot map and clear, repeat, go to a full server, kill. Logically, military sites are where people would flock for first defence or medical care, zeds attracted and overwhelm, lots of zeds roaming miliary sites.

The zombies themselves I think are fine. They have the potential to overwhelm a player in a tight spot but you should be able to run away from them indefinitely. You have to turn and fight at somepoint and take some damage for your trouble or run to a friend or just keep running until you lose them, which puts you a long way from your original target. Their only flaw is that to a well armed person they pose no threat at distance, which would be fine if their numbers and health were increased at northen levels or larger cities. On the running thing obviously it's not realistic to be able to run forever, or for them to chase you forever. But then again it's not realistic to die from hunger in a day, much less bleed when hungry. Some things can't be realistic for the game to be fun.

I'ma stop rambling on now, I'm sure I'll think of more things to talk about whilst I'm playing but for now I am in enjoying DayZ very much and am looking forward to whatever direction it goes in.

[Tatakt 50]

What I think DayZ needs is a goal, some overarching purpose to your playing it. Survival isn't a goal, I could get enough supplies and sit in the woods in 30 mins and just live there indefinitely. Player killing isn't challenging or rewarding once you have decent gear. High level firefights with multiple players can be fun but they can end in an instant and then you're back to square one. In the ZA the simplest thing is to reach uninfected civilizaition and "escape", if for example more zombies spawned the further north you went and at the tip there was an escape path with a horde guarding it....well something to do a couple times. If it's challenging enough players would be forced to tag team or better and not risk killing potential allies. Not that bandits are a bad part of the game, I like the dimention pure player killers add, but there needs to be less of them.

Sandboxes dont need goals.

[Play (DayZ) 123]

Welcome to the forum! Hope you are feeling better now! :)

[aranha 2]

Sandboxes dont need goals.

Im far too new to comment on Dayz current state when it comes to endgame. But even as a sandbox i think there needs to be something to strive for other then killing people. Things that often make sandboxes amasing games are that the community decides where the game goes. A few examples are such as clans having proper headquarters and politics between groups of players fighting eachother for something.

What if there was somekind of territorry claim for groups of players granting them forexample a option to spawn with eachother in theses locations and stashing equipment as long as other players dont claim it?

As i said i am far too new to actually give any proper feedback and just spewing out some factors that make hardcore sandboxes playable for longer periods.

[cs_flame@hotmail.com 1]

As relatively new to the game as I am there's no such thing as a sandbox game that doesn't have goals. It'd be like skyrim without the quests. I'm not saying DayZ needs a storyline or missions, but something to do once you have a bit of gear.

I agree with aranha that the best forms are community created but DayZ lacks the infrastructure to allow it to happen properly. The server hopping and inability to create base-like areas (Granted you have some bits like wire fencing etc) makes it impossible at present. I'm sure smaller private communities can get more out of what we currently have but to the masses that join servers at random to play the game there has to be some structure and something to strive towards to make this game playable in the long term.

And thanks for the welcome ^^ I don't really feel the need to vent but DayZ has such an opportunity here that I can't hold my opinions back =)

Edited July 26, 2012 by Flamzypants

[peacemonkclan acheron 2]

If Dayz had the infrastructure for clans to claim lands and build forts, say the forts also persisted through server restarts or something we would see more members flock to them simply because it would be fun, say even further down the line clans could build their own helipad spawn site for their members that could be destroyed and would be costly, that would be interesting. Nothing would be more fun than rolling up to a rival clans base and destroying their spawn site and watching them rage as they spawn on the beach again.