Massive DayZ Overhaul

[Rallige 74]

Hello everyone,

After playing DayZ for a couple of months, I would like to share suggestions I accumulated as well as my thoughts on what’s going on right now and overall community spirits and enthusiasm downfall. One thing to clarify from the beginning – I was encouraged to write this mostly by standalone DayZ project announcing, and I totally don’t rush/expect my suggestions will make it into current mod any time soon. Just knowing that this has been read and taking into consideration while working on standalone by someone from dev team would make me happy. I will post this both on suggestion and general discussion forums, because this thread will have both suggestions and discussible objects in it). So, let us begin.

I’m expecting this to be quite a wall of text, so in order to keep my thoughts/ideas logically connected, I find it necessary to take a look in 2 major questions:

1) What kind of gamers does DayZ attract? As for myself, I put game audience in these major categories:

I) Zombie fans – expect zombies to be main feature of this mod and, while downloading it, prepare themselves for thrilling survival in cities and wilderness, infested with undead. Just like in the movies. IMO, forms biggest part of newcomers and community.

II) Sandbox game fans – people with rich imagination, expecting to create their own stories using whatever game has to offer. Mostly oriented towards PvE gameplay.

III) Challenge fans – people sick of modern game industry, yearly producing games with health regeneration and HUD, warning about all possible threats. Expect hard, exhausting gameplay with little to no mercy to mistakes. ( I put all vanilla ARMA/ OFP fans here too, lol)

IV) Survival game fans – those who enjoy scrapping the bottom of a barrel and who get adrenaline rush just from counting humble resources left. ( I put here those who love any postapocalyptic setting (not certainly zombie – related) too)

NB! I didn’t sort players by game genre, coz ARMA 2 is an action game, and, obviously, its mod will attract action game fans mostly.

NB! Please don’t forget that mixed categories are also possible (and, as I see it, form nucleus of DayZ community), and are kept in mind. Zombie fans, looking for challenge, you are not forgotten!

Before I continue, that me and rest of our 5-men group fit mixed category of I), II) and IV) with different points of view about challenge. Please keep that in mind as it explains that personal emotion I might put in this text.

Now let us continue to second major question:

2) What kind of gamers might get frustrated by DayZ and why? While there are godzillions rage threads all over the forums, I didn’t see much effort to investigate rage reasons and run analysis. So this thread is also written in memory and help of those, who got eaten by hungry trollsZ. So, :

I) Zombie fans – because this mod is not about zombies. It may have letter Z in its name, but it doesn’t mean much, coz, sadly, current zombies are more of an annoying obstacle, than key feature. Open “What is DayZ?” tab from front page of DayZ website and you will see, that zombies are mentioned before other features, what automatically places them into core of this mod in eyes of newcomer. And now listen to an average skype/ teamspeak dialogue I have with my group:

Friend: Oh man, did you see that video on youtube (blablabla)

Me: Yeah, it’s… Crap, gimme a moment, I got a zed after me - (blam) – you were saying?

And I’m pretty sure our group is not the only one who has talks like that. Our group are hardcore zombie fans, jumping into DayZ from other zombie games (even after owning Zombie Panic: Source server) for some better zed experience, and all we currently have are weak NPC’s, guarding a can of beans.

While it’s true that “The greatest threat comes from the breakdown of society and from other people, not zombies – Rocket”, It doesn’t have to mean that zombies should be as laughable as they are now and that threat they pose should come from their bugs, not mechanics. And while bugs are actively fixed and zed overall polished (which is, no doubt, great), I still wasn’t able to find any new mechanics announced.

II) Sandbox game fans – because this sandbox currently has little sand to play with. Over time you will inevitably find out, that it’s much easier and enjoyable to ruin sand castles of other players – because after building a dozen yourself, you will find out that there is nothing left to do, but PvP. Doesn’t matter, how long your road to understanding be – once you start playing DayZ, you’re already a bandit.

Beach - > Makarov -> PvP

Beach -> Weapon and tools -> Tent camp -> More weapons and tools -> Vehicles -> Helicopters -> PvP

Doesn’t matter which road will you take – it’s always PvP at the end.

*Why do you need weapons? – to PvP

*Why do you need map and compass? – to get to better looting places at North – What for? – to PvP

*Why do you need tent camp? – to stock my gear and supplies – What for? – for PvP/in case of death in PvP

*Why do you need vehicles/ helicopters? – see “*” number 1 or 2

As long as there is not much to do, this group of gamers cannot be satisfied and will rage/quit quietly.

III) Challenge fans – because, to be honest, this game isn’t really challenging. Let’s look into main aspects of this mod:

* Survival – the only challenge here is finding matches, hatchet, hunting knife and canteen. In theory, after that, you can survive for infinite amount of time, considering you keep out from main player/zombie populated areas. But this is, ofc, incredibly boring.

* Gathering loot – has barely any challenge in it, after you figure out how zombie agro mechanics work and get basic idea about residential/industrial/farm/military grade loot spots. Not only gathering process itself is easy – amount of loot is enormous. Literally after looting only one store you can get enough supplies/weapons to cross entire map on foot.

* PvE – incredibly easy if you get any weapon (well, crowbar and crossbow can be tricky) and have basic idea about zombie patterns indoor/outdoor.

* PvP – is a two-sided blade. Look at it like “Hah, I can 1 shot kill/knock out with most of weapons” – and it seems easy. Think of it as “OMG, I can be killed by 1 bullet” – and it seems very hard. IMO, only balanced thing in DayZ.

All in all, after a couple of days in-game, only aspect that is still challenging is PvP.

IV) Survival game fans – just look at “*” 1 and 2 for previous gamer category to find out, why these ppl might get pissed off pretty quickly.

So, after we classified most often rage problems, let’s look into mentioned (and not mentioned) problems closely.

1) HACKING.

Not much I can say or suggest on this one other than notice the tremendous hacking issues count increase through last couple of days. Before last update only hacking/exploit issues I experienced were invisible players, who didn’t install beta patches correctly or didn’t update those accordingly. Through past few days I witnessed totally ruined villages/town parts, fought and retreated from hacked vehicles, ambushed ppl with hacked equipment at their camps, etc, etc. + saw youtube vids of parachute cow attacks and artillery strike on Stary Sobor. Needless to say I (and, obviously, whole community) would like to see this solved, coz it’s getting quite ridiculous in a game, that can be rage-indulcing itself.

2) ENORMOUS PvP.

Is it an issue at all? I think it is a MAJOR issue, even though Rocket doesn’t seem to care much. Of course, PvP is a massive part of gameplay, and its mechanics should stay as untouched as possible, but current scale is just a joke. Personally, I feel strange about Rockets posts about DayZ being “social experiment” and offering COMMUNITY to do something about it ( “This IS stupid. So do something about it. Posting "aw everyone kills everyone" on the forums is what people have been doing for ages. Has it worked? NO. So try something else.” – Rocket). I’m sorry, but we are not developers and don’t have the tools to change it. Let’s take a look into gamer categories, who get attracted by DayZ. I felt right not to include “Brainless PvP Deathmatch fans” category, because, seriously, you don’t get into something that claims to be Zombie Survival Simulator just to KoS any player you meet, and actually look forward to this. You have vanilla ArmA 2 for that. You don’t even need to loot your weapons there. Personally, I didn’t buy ArmA2 for DayZ and had it ages ago, but some ppl ( let’s face the truth - majority of mod population did), and I don’t think it’s a right thing to roflstomp on their expectations and troll their posts. If there’s so much rage posts it doesn’t mean community is sick and whiny. It only means that more and more people are getting disappointed in DayZ, coz it doesn’t meet their expectations. I believe that discovering that DayZ is about PvP 24/7 rather than zombie survival horror feels like biting into chocolate covered piece of shit ( AVGN ). If you, Rocket, find current situation OK, then please change description/advertisement to show the new truth about DayZ. So that people don’t get tricked into it. It could save their time and your precious forum space.

Even if we, as you suggest, “organize” and clear all of Chernogorsks snipers (which, btw, we with my group have already done so many times) and crazy murderers, we WILL get shot after we get down from our positions to meet grateful crowd. Just because people got used to current state of things and don’t expect anything good from people with weapons (they probably shouldn’t, but right now it’s CERTAIN death). And even if we don’t get down we still can get killed by people spawning behind us. So right now there is no sense in solving PvP problem by the means of PvP. It’s a chain reaction that can be broken only by changing PvP circumstances and, well, philosophy, while preserving its mechanics. How?

Let’s take a look into current PvP under microscope:

Why do people sooner or later get into PvP?

I) BECAUSE IT’S SO EASY TO TAKE LIFE.

Why? Because firearms and ammunition are plentiful, they are deadly, there is no danger firing them and all of them can be easily operated. Before I start, let’s remember one simple truth – in zombie apocalypse your gun is used to get you out of trouble, not into it. What could be done about it?

* On quantity of weapons and ammo – I think everyone would agree that currently Chernarus is actually a barrel of gunpowder, oversaturated with firearms, especially high-tier military grade equipment. And average survivor looks like this (watches, lol) :

If we hope to see current PvP madness gone, it has to be changed. It might be unpopular decision, but spawn rates for ammo and firearms must be decreased, while new melee and improvised ( smth like crossbow) weapons are introduced. Some loot position rebalancing would be great (make it so spawned loot fits the location – eg. Deer Stands : who the hell hunts deer with AK, UZI, M4 and frag grenades? Make them spawn civil weapons instead, as well as some of tools like matches and knives)

For both military and civil firearms – ammo/clip interaction would be nice to have implemented, also seeing random ammo amount in freshly spawned clips would be good ( right now it’s always full clips, unless somebody dropped some used – makes little sense to me, as I look into those like somebody was defending using them, and failed horribly, rather than like they were shipped directly from factory). Would require correct ammo tracking system, which, AFAIK, is being worked on (and it’s great).

Military grade firearms, IMO, should be treated a little different than civil. I strongly believe that these weapons should be spread out more randomly through “events” like crashed helicopter sites. Obviously, crashed helicopters might be quite rare to find (and considering what I’m about to suggest they should become even more rare), so I suggest implementing new types of “random loot spawns” like Destroyed military column (would appear randomly on roads of Chernarus and consist of destroyed military vehicles and dead soldiers, scattered around. Would encourage travelling more and give not off-road vehicles a meaning), Abandoned military camps ( 2-3-4 military tents, ruined vehicles and dead soldiers, placed in the woods mostly ), Overrun firing position ( some dead bodies, maybe ruined APC, should appear in cities randomly and be the only military objects in them, make fire stations become industrial/residential buildings, as they should be).

By doing this, you will solve “I go – I win” problem, and, as a sideway bonus, reduce sniping problem sharpness (with no fixed high-end loot spawn positions camping would be pointless, forcing snipers to move around, as well as their prey). Military buildings could keep spawning military loot, but % should make adventuring a viable (if not more attractive) choice as well.

About demands of cutting out some weapons (like .50 Cal and rocket launchers) – they might be useful and fit into DayZ, as you will read soon enough.

*On firearms being deadly – not much to add here. It’s ArmA, after all. No changes needed, IMO. Just one thing has to be mentioned – re-logging and spawning behind the opponent’s back. Like other people have suggested numerous times, 1 character per server would totally fix this madness.

*On consequences of firing a gun – while scarce ammo might make most players think twice before firing a gun already, I find that it would be not enough. Of course I’m talking about zombie agro mechanics, but it is being worked on just as I type, and it’s really good to hear that. My suggestions:

- Larger hearing radius : speaks for itself. Fire a gun only for a good reason, not for fun.

- Zombies don’t lock on you aggroed, but slowly bunch up and investigate the sound source, just like they do with tincans; aggro only after visual confirmation of player

- Make more zombies spawn. If server can’t handle much zombies at once, make zed spawn and proceed towards gunman from next block after shots were fired (so that zombies don’t spawn on top of player). Might screw other players, who didn’t shoot, but that’s how it should work, IMO. Dead Frontier has this feature, and it feels legit, even when zombies re-aggro on you on their way to gunman. Needs to be discussed.

- Dynamic zombie agro : right now zombies get stuck after arriving at point of their interest, without re-aggroing on players just in front of them. Also zombies could re-aggro on other players, if they see them before gunman.

- Fixing zombies disappearing after re-logging + 1 character per server rule could keep players from buggy escape. Logging off would only help if you stop playing that character for some amount of time, needed for those zombies to disappear/reaggro.

* On operating guns : please see next part.

II) BECAUSE IT’S SO UNPUNISHING TO LOSE LIFE.

Why? Because all you lose is your gear. While new players might feel really bad about losing ALICE pack and Winchester and fear it, experienced players, with camp set up and vehicles parked laugh at this. Because:

1) They can re-loot most of gear in 1 – 2 hours

2) They can get picked up by their buddies on vehicle and re-equip in a camp in 10 – 15 minutes

3) They can keep respawning until close to their corpse and try looting it (will get fixed soon)

Things I’m about to suggest might make you spit right in my face/forum avatar, but I believe they must be implemented one way or another. Skills. Now let me explain what I mean. Rocket has some deep words posted on these forums : “YOUR CHARACTER SHOULD REFLECT YOU”. I would like to take understanding of this to a next level. While I don’t know if Rocket really meant it, I think that this reflection of yourself can be something more than answer to questions “would I shoot on sight or not” or “would I share a can of beans with a stranger”. I would like to reflect myself as much as I can, and bring my RL skills into DayZ to find out how would I do through a zombie apocalypse and society breakdown. IMO, it can be done by:

* Implementation of slowly developing skills – as I see it, you don’t get any skill panels like in classic RPGs. You just… become better at what you do throughout day. Without even knowing you “current skill level”.

To explain this let’s get back to operating guns. I myself have almost never fired a serious gun (had some fun with hunting rifle a long time ago), and didn’t even see many IRL. Pistols I usually see are holstered at policemen waist. And I would like to carry this lack of firearms experience into my DayZ story. I think it should be possible to reflect it there by:

1) Gun is shaking in inexperienced arms ( smth like shock, but a little less ).

2) Gun is reloading longer in inexperienced arms.

3) Rate of fire is slower in inexperienced arms (especially if weapon is bolt action rifle).

4) You can’t keep your breath for as long as experienced shooter can.

5) It takes longer to steady your gun and recoil is harder in inexperienced arms.

Now what happens at the end of the day. Depending on how much you used your gun, some (or all) of those negative effects are softer on survival day 2. And it only gets better and better if you have enough practice/ survive for long enough. Which you probably won’t get much considering ammo rarity.

Not sure if “getting better” should affect only specific gun you were using or whole gun class (pistols/ shotguns/ rifles, etc). I heard that guns, belonging to the same class can be quite different to feel and handle. Needs more discussion. Especially about operating heavy weapons like AS50 and rocket launcher. I’m sure as hell I’d never come close to rocket launcher IRL without any training at all, and would totally kill myself with a recoil of .50 cal .

Skills I described could affect not guns only : there currently are quite some other activities, that usually take practice in order to be effective at them :

- Sprinting and running: Implemented stamina and endurance (which lvls from day to day) would give meaning to sitting animation, which currently is only used to take nifty screenshots on top of victims/around campfire. Backpack/inventory weight implementation and affection would be nice.

- Medicine : Bandaging could take longer, bloodbag restore less blood (some of it is spilled due to inexperienced medic being clumsy while preparing a transfusion system – I know it from my own experience). You could even need more than one bandage to completely stop bleeding, if you’re new to bandaging wounds.

- Cooking : You might burn some meat if you’re new to it

- Gutting animals : might miss/spoil some parts of meat.

- Repairing a car and driving it : slower repairing and less soft driving if inexperienced.

- Something else I forgot to mention.

* Implementation of pre-set biography – now after I explained my point of view on skills, let’s think about a way we can bring skills that we actually have IRL into DayZ. I could only think of 2 ways:

- Let players choose their specialization themselves, allowing to create custom characters (feels too gamey to me)

- Let us choose from a list of occupations (after we choose sex). It should be pretty obvious that police officer would be better with guns, while medic – with meds, etc. To make people rely on each other, there should be a set of actions, open only to “professionals” : complex medical treatment (see below), operating heavy weapons, flying a chopper, etc.

Well now, with some sort of REAL (not just finding basic gear) progress, I believe most people would think twice before starting a gunfight. Because now you actually have a life to lose, not just set of equipment.

III) BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING ELSE TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE

While there are plenty activities that might take hours and hours to complete/achieve, currently you will sooner or later end up going PvP. While suggestions under I) and II) would make mindless PvP less likely, we still need something for those, who don’t enjoy killing other players very much, but have to do it because everything else is boring.

We need some kind of goal. Shhhh, I’m not talking about quests and missions – this is a sandbox game, and you create and complete your own quests/missions/goals. What I meant was adding set of… well, circumstances, which would impact sandbox gameplay on a server. I’m talking about Cycles.

What is a Cycle? It’s an amount of time (different, has to be discussed), during which whole server experiences some kind of Event. Let’s see some examples:

EVENT – Military raid

TIME – 3 days

DESCRIPTION : during 3 days military units are roaming Chernarus, completing unknown mission, during which they shoot zombies and survivors alike. Can be combated and looted (probably only way to acquire full, unused clips) . Heavy weapons (AS50, rocket launcher) actually have another meaning – fighting possible APC’s and helicopters.

Just imagine yourself in a store in Chernogorsk, minding your own business, when suddenly you hear working engine, turn your head and see an APC and 4- 6 soldiers, entering the city. I think it would be thrilling.

EVENT – Cold season

TIME – 7 days

DESCRIPTION : for a week, it’s colder than usual, resulting in more infections. Keep in mind Zombie buff, firearms rebalanced and life experience thingy. Now try finding words to explain your infected mate, why you don’t wanna go to the hospital and try getting meds for him.

EVENT – Hungry Times

TIME – 7 days

DESCRIPTION : for a week, all food loot spawns are ½ or even 1/3 of normal, animals are much more rare. Hold on you beans, bro. That’s the most beautiful word now.

EVENT – Zombie Infestation

TIME – 3 days

Description – Zombie count is doubled (tripled?) in cities; they can form packs and roam wilderness at random paths.

And so on. As you can see, those really aren’t so hated on these forums “missions” and “quests”, just set of slightly different rules, changing over time. You still make your own decisions and craft your owns story. Just little something to keep you on your toes and prepare for. I would really like to hear your scenarios/events, and play them at least in my head.

I would suggest some more things in this part of post, but Rocket pretty much covered everything, announcing that base building might be possible in standalone, as much as other activities.

Well, If I), II) and III) get implemented at some point, I believe that PvP scale will be much more reasonable than now. Now those, who PvP because they don’t care do die will have their lives to care about, those, who PvP, because they have nothing more to do will have something to stay occupied, and those who want just grief will still be able to do that, but now it won’t be stupidly easy.

It’s funny, but it turned out that while I was explaining my point of view about how enormous PvP issue could be solved, I actually managed to tell everything I wanted about other major rage problems:

3) ZOMBIES NOT POSING REAL THREAT

Just look into “*consequences of firing a gun” part to see my point of view on solving this. In addition, I would like to answer one single question – what makes zombie (undead ones) theme so different in whole horror sector of movies/videogames? Possible answers:

* The fact them being dead bodies is horrifying itself. The way they move, sound, act gives me creeps – imported into a videogame by idle animations/textures/ models/sounds. All those could use more work in DayZ, and, afaik, are being worked on pretty much right now. Good to know. I just would like to see “gorier” textures – blue faces with bruises remind me more of a bums and alcoholics I deal in hospital with, than zombies.

* The way they deal with survivors, all that gore of being eaten alive – imported into a videogame by attack/aggro animations/sounds. These could use more work too; it would be really cool to have a separate gore model/texture for survivors, eaten by zombies, rather than they share the same one with those who got shot. Seems logical to me.

If fixing aggro mechanics won’t make zombies much more deadly (even though I believe it would), and raising their quantity is not an option due to server lag, than at least buff their HP ( like somebody from the forums suggested recently). If animations are more smooth, then we could think about good old “damage the brain” rule (not gonna happen, most probably)

4) NOT MUCH TO DO OTHER THAN PvP

Just look into III) part of PvP text to find out how I see the solution and wait for Rocket to implement what he has planned.

5) BUGS

Might be the only part when I totally share opinion of forum’s majority – it’s an ALPHA, those things are annoying, but are constantly reported and eventually get fixed (sometimes introducing new bugs, but oh well). I just hope that by my wall of text I contributed something that can be used for everyone’s good.

Last, but not least – I searched the forums for some suggestions\thoughts I posted here, and, of course, found some of those. What I was surprised about, is how fresh most of those posts are. Here, have a look yourself :

Argus - skills - http://dayzmod.com/f...age__hl__skills

smokeshadows - skills and prior occupation - http://dayzmod.com/f...dea/#entry91653

SolarClipz – not a zombie game - http://dayzmod.com/f..._20#entry443029

mora4al - classes and profession - http://dayzmod.com/f..._hl__profession

Hulahuga – guns and ammo rebalanced - http://dayzmod.com/f...ommon-than-aks/

This can only mean that people are understanding current situation, hate it and are trying to generate some kind of solution.

What I also tried to achieve, is not only posting a bunch of suggestions, but also try to explain/imagine how they would work together, in case of implementation. I hope I succeeded on that one.

P.S

I have been writing this for 2 days (with breaks / DayZ playing sessions of course, lol), and English is not my first language, so I apologize for possible mistakes.

Thank you for your attention. May the beans be with you. Always.

P.P.S

I posted this in General Discussion forum part, because this wall of text, apart from suggestions, also has my point of view on many questions. So,

If you have something to say about suggestions - do so on the suggestion forum part please

If you have something to say about other, more philosophical part of my parts of my posts, or think that I'm wrong in my way of thinking - please let me know here.

Thank you again.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Rallige

[fearz0r 128]

so... much... text...

I will get around to replying properly once I've collected some food, water and a sleeping bag.. it's going to take a while.

NB: this should really have been posted in the "suggestions" forum. Double posting isn't really a good thing to do either.. just saying.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Burro

[Skully (DayZ) 6]

honestly the only problem in this game i got, is most deaths is to sniper that sit outside of town without worry and just snipe people. and 1 hit to anywere kills you. that i think is only downer of PVP.

Sniper wins all. >.> and most of the time they dont even want anything off ur body, they just want to kill you.

[Bottlerocket 205]

You get some beans for the effort and the sentiment behind the post.

A well, thought out argument for a more developed game. What's not to like?

I'm all for the changes you suggest, namely:

Tougher zombies

Fewer guns (esp military grade)

Less ammo.

This is a "fucking zombie apocalypse", so hopefully that's the way it's going to develop.

[Zymi 64]

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/forum/9-dayz-suggestions/

pls

[thelonewarrior 886]

Alpha

Get over it

Feel lucky your even playing this mod, most if not all other mods/ games arnt even released to the public in alpha state

Everything you have stated is because its in alpha state.

Dont like it?

Go away and come back in a year

Edited July 26, 2012 by thelonewarrior

[teih 36]

Fantastic post, I agree with everything you said.

Sadly I do not think Rocket will be very interested in any of this, because he expect gamers to meat out the game for him.

Unfortunately it doesn't work like that, as you said.

Edit: I notice how you already are getting replys from people who have not read your post. Just ignore them, really.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Teih

[steelredeemer 7]

Alpha

Get over it

Feel lucky your even playing this mod, most if not all other mods/ games arnt even released to the public in alpha state

Everything you have stated is because its in alpha state.

Dont like it?

Go away and come back in a year

Yeah, get out of here with your suggestions and feedback, this here is an ALPHA, meant to remain stagnant. This wasn't released to get player testing and feedback or ANYTHING LIKE THAT, so shut your pie hole with these logical and interesting suggestions on how to build on an incomplete game!

Edited July 26, 2012 by steelredeemer

[Ramblin Hans 118]

I don't know, though you stated it early I don't think you recognize how much bias you actually have. "brainless pvp deathmatch" people or whatever you referred to is a pretty broad generalization, and pretty much again highlights you would rather have a zombie PvE mmo type scenario.

There are some other categories I think you are missing. Of specific importance to me, explorers - one of the basic battle test categories. This game is attractive to me in large part due to its huge size and relatively difficult (without using internet aids) navigation. I also take issue with sandbox gamers being "mostly pve". Another main attraction point to this game is the unfettered, free nature of PvP within the sandbox. Do I want/enjoy getting sniped without seeing the guy at 700 m? No, of course not. But being able to choose our own motivations is freeing.

So, using these expanded definitions, by admission I'd say I am equal part sandbox, challenge, and explorer. Honestly, the fact there are zombies in the mod are cool as a backdrop, but only necessary as much as any developer driven game plot.

I applaud the statements you quote from the developer and hope they don't take a direction of making a giant pve zombie mmo.

[M4L 42]

nice, disagree with alot but what the heck :D

but i kinda miss the part where vehicles shud be more abundant, zombie apocalypse?

so, more vehicles, prolly with dead battery, flat tire, no fuel, its ridiculous to run around with 4 wheels, engine parts, scrap metal to fix one up,

all i have found up to now is and shaggy old volkswagen, and u can't outrun zombies with that on rough terrain, ridiculous :)

well, got lots more, what id like to see in this game, maybe i shud summon it up in the suggestion thread

how much is even possible, considering the limitations of the game?

Edited July 26, 2012 by M4L

[dillon (DayZ) 3]

I Agree with you on many great points you made.

Ironically the success of the game is one of the biggest obstacles now, the developers won't be massively changing anything so as not to piss off the current player base.

Seasonal challenges such cold/hungry times would fit nicely into the current game.

[Rudie (DayZ) 10]

Alpha

Get over it

Feel lucky your even playing this mod, most if not all other mods/ games arnt even released to the public in alpha state

Everything you have stated is because its in alpha state.

Dont like it?

Go away and come back in a year

I think we all know its in Alpha. Go away from this thread if you dont like or cant contribute with out sounding like a crazed old man yellin go away at people runnin on his lawn :)

Discussions like this are needed.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Rudie

[Hero Star 3]

Like someone previously said. This is still in Alpha. So be prepared to wait a while, or at least do some bug testing.

You people have it so easy. I've been waiting for one of my favorite games, SWGEmu, to get finished for around 12 years(I can't believe it's been that long!) and it has just now hit Alpha. Day Z has such an extreme following that once Rocket decides to partner up with someone, very soon, there are going to big such huge and fast strides in development that its going to become very very enjoyable.

Until then, play when you feel like it and when you don't, play something else or do something else.

[ericdude88 20]

Read whole thing. Not sure what to think of the rest, but I definitely agree on lowering the amount of mlitary spawns and making firestations civilian loot buildings, as well as making spawn spots more spread out rather than concentrated.

It's kind of stupid that every player's biggest fear right now is a .50 cal bullet to the chest from a bored anti-material rifle wielding guy 2 km away who has a spotter using thermal vision, rather than zombies themselves or fear of starving/dehydration.

The survival aspect of this game is too easy once you know all the loot spawns, and the map gets dull fast as well because you're just constantly going to the same places to get geared. The vast majority of towns on DayZ right now serve ZERO PURPOSE. Right now all I do is run through the forest north of Cherno, hit apartments to get backpack/navigation/cooking gear, go right across street to hospital for meds, get back out into forest run west until near grocery then go south back into cherno again, hit grocery store for the samething and maybe a winchester/pistol, hit church for the lols, then firestaion for AR. Usually takes me 20 minutes in total to do this if i spawn close (And I can do so by using respawn button), especially since the grocery/firestation/church are all lin like the same spot. Then, fully geared with an Alice Pack, all the cooking tools for unlimited survival, and an AR, I head north to Stary/NW until I get sniped. Sometimes I'll find a sniper and BE the hunter, but eventually I die in this long deathmatch just to do the samething i described above over again.

For god's sake, this is a post apocalyptic survival game, not a Green Berets vs Spetsnaz CoD style Spec Ops mode game with a bigger map. All the nutsos running around with 50 cals, night vision, thermals, and silenced M4s to kill people for fun is just STUPID.

[ltdan 14]

Nice post, happy to see some constructive suggestions.

[Swineflew 480]

Tagging so I can reply when I get to a PC.

Nvm it's just an overanalyzed wall of text whine thread.

I'm being a bit rude, since his threadnaught was worded well and nicely, but I it basically boils down to the same anti-pvp pro zombie argument.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Swineflew

[pieeyedsniper 25]

III) BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING ELSE TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE

While there are plenty activities that might take hours and hours to complete/achieve, currently you will sooner or later end up going PvP. While suggestions under I) and II) would make mindless PvP less likely, we still need something for those, who don’t enjoy killing other players very much, but have to do it because everything else is boring.

We need some kind of goal. Shhhh, I’m not talking about quests and missions – this is a sandbox game, and you create and complete your own quests/missions/goals. What I meant was adding set of… well, circumstances, which would impact sandbox gameplay on a server. I’m talking about Cycles.

What is a Cycle? It’s an amount of time (different, has to be discussed), during which whole server experiences some kind of Event. Let’s see some examples:

EVENT – Military raid

TIME – 3 days

DESCRIPTION : during 3 days military units are roaming Chernarus, completing unknown mission, during which they shoot zombies and survivors alike. Can be combated and looted (probably only way to acquire full, unused clips) . Heavy weapons (AS50, rocket launcher) actually have another meaning – fighting possible APC’s and helicopters.

Just imagine yourself in a store in Chernogorsk, minding your own business, when suddenly you hear working engine, turn your head and see an APC and 4- 6 soldiers, entering the city. I think it would be thrilling.

EVENT – Cold season

TIME – 7 days

DESCRIPTION : for a week, it’s colder than usual, resulting in more infections. Keep in mind Zombie buff, firearms rebalanced and life experience thingy. Now try finding words to explain your infected mate, why you don’t wanna go to the hospital and try getting meds for him.

EVENT – Hungry Times

TIME – 7 days

DESCRIPTION : for a week, all food loot spawns are ½ or even 1/3 of normal, animals are much more rare. Hold on you beans, bro. That’s the most beautiful word now.

EVENT – Zombie Infestation

TIME – 3 days

Description – Zombie count is doubled (tripled?) in cities; they can form packs and roam wilderness at random paths.

This

I would love to be just roaming chreno or stary and have a small extermination force roll through. Epic gun battles and youtube vids would be had.

[krystar 0]

why not just adopt a mechanic like MMORPG games. if u alt-f4 / task manager kill process/lose connection, your in-game character only acknowledges a loss of command stream, not disappearing off the server. your character only disappeares off server if there's no zombies are aggroed on you and no connected players within X yards (200-300 seems reasonable to curb mid fight alt-f4) and only if noone has you acquired in sniper sights.

so if you're going to log off, do it out in the middle of nowhere.

also, a log in mechanic. when logging in, stall a logging in player until their login area is clear (200-300 yards). prevents from people just showing up behind you.

additionally, would add to mechanics of gameplay if you were able to tag another player as friendly. this way, if you were at your clan camp and everyone around you is tagged friendly, those players would be exempt from the logoff check as mentioned above. friendly players might also have name tag overhead within 20yd range. would help the constant question "hey is that you?" at 20yards, you'd facially recognize somebody even if ingame graphic limitations and 3d models can't render that detail.

also, can we change the default "guns pointed up" mode. or at least have option to go guns down, guns up, gun stowed. as a survivor, keeping pistol or even assault rifle pointing up and on target for hours is not only tiring but impossible. it's also funny to see two people "hey i'm friendly!" and approach each other guns drawn.

[Rallige 74]

Well guys, thank you for keeping it civil and sharing your opinions peacefully. I know that this is alpha, but I'm sure as hell I'm having fun with it, and this thread is the only way I can contribute to it.

I would like to highlight one problem, that can be sharper than it seems - 1 character per server rule. I was told a couple a hours ago that it could result in losing your whole progress if something happens to server you usually play on.

My position - I'm ready to lose my progress if all other time I was safe from ghosting.

What do you think about this?