Tom Berenger has a lot to answer for

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

I disagree with you. I think whilst a game is in alpha is the perfect time to point out improvements.

His point is you can't have a serious discussion about the frequency of items and the scarcity of ammo when item duplication bugs are rampant and ammo clips refill themselves when you log out of the game.

We need to wait until item duplication exploits are fixed and ammo is actually tracked accurately.

Then we can talk about hether certain weapons and ammo are too common in the game.

Because I think right now there are literally millions of rounds of "free" ammunition being flooded into the game every day when people log out with partially spent clips.

I for one once used a DMR for 2+ weeks only carrying 2 clips, because the clips are large and I would only fire 5-10 shots per play session meaning I never even used an entire clip, and next time I logged in they were both full again.

So, yes, Alpha is a time for suggesting improvements but you also have to take into account how the Alpha state of the game effects things like balance, etc. before you start talking about the details of those improvements.

In short, fix item duplication, fix "free unlimited ammo" bugs, and then we can discuss frequency and rarity of military grade equipment.

Furthermore we don't really know what happened. So if we are going to speculate on that, we might as well say the military successfully withdrew the largest part of the population and their own personnel and vehicles, and what we see as we arrive on the scene in the aftermath is simply those that didn't make it. Hence, the military would have shipped out the majority of their supplies (including ammo stores).

There's plenty of evidence that the military stuck around for awhile and tried to clean up the mess.

Temporary military hospitals in major population centers, piles of dead bodies outside cities and in military bases like Green Mountain. Fire stations being used as temporary strongholds, etc.

And don't forget the military weren't just contending with zombies - they were also fighting the earliest bandits. ;)

[Mojo Jojo 6]

I have said this numerous times in various posts.

The military grade weapons need to be reduced and the ammo made alot more rare.

<very long post snipped.>

I regret that I have only one can of beans to give. Great post, agree 100% with everything you wrote. Wouldn't mind to see the military grade weapons disappear entirely and even have non-military weapons and ammo be considerably more scarce. And please give us a separate melee slot so it is easier to save ammo for the times when you really need it.

[tarquinbb 28]

I don't pay as a bandit and have never killed another player, but I don't mind the snipers. It adds to the tension. I can be almost anywhere on the map and still feel like I could be shot at. Knowing this makes me spend a long time scouting areas with my binocs before proceeding. It's pretty exiting. Even more so when a bullet whizzes near to you and you have to try and figure out where you are getting shot from to hide. If I knew that I wasn't going to get shot at from a long distance I wouldn't be half as worried. A map of this size needs sniper rifles imo.

i agree, but the extent at which you need to be 'cautious' to eliminate the chance of being sniped is detrimental to the game experience.

to guarantee not getting sniped you need to avoid sniper hotspots entirely, plus prone-crawl everywhere, plus stop for 30 minutes every 100 yards or so to check for other players in the distance. that's not a fun way to play, i think most people would agree. if you want to play at a semi-careful but PRODUCTIVE speed then you're always at risk of getting insta-killed.

[Gogster (DayZ) 626]

Again the same thing. Sniper rifles ARE rare. In 3 weeks I found 1 CZ550, 1 DMR and 1 M24. (compared to 25 AKMs, M16s M4s, etc, etc).

Why everyone has one is item duping. Take it out of your tent, next restart it's back there. Get killed? Run to your tent, take your sniper rifle and ghillie suit, go back sniping. If you had to search a week to get a good rifle, you wouldn't run to the hill N of Elektrozavodsk to snipe noobs. Because once a day a fresh spawn comes by and chops you up with an axe and you have to spend another week farming weapons.

Once this gets fixed and weapons properly despawn, it'll be back to how it should be.

Ah I see what osirish is saying now. Although I don't think it's been much different when it comes to people camping military spawn points and hospitals.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Ah I see what osirish is saying now. Although I don't think it's been much different when it comes to people camping military spawn points and hospitals.

You should add an option to your poll under sniper rifles and ammo that says "Too polluted by duplicated items and free ammo to evaluate" or something along those lines.

Because that's how I and a lot of people I know feel.

You overestimate the commonality of these items and their effectiveness because of these bugs.

Many snipers perched above Cherno and Elektro probably only carry one ammo clip and just log out when they get down to 1 round...

If they actually had to deal with real ammo scarcity, you would probably be hearing a lot less shots. M24 and M107 rounds in particular are not that easy to come by in nature. It's just that 1-2 clips can last you a month that's the real problem.

[Gogster (DayZ) 626]

You should add an option to your poll under sniper rifles and ammo that says "Too polluted by duplicated items and free ammo to evaluate" or something along those lines.

Because that's how I and a lot of people I know feel.

You overestimate the commonality of these items and their effectiveness because of these bugs.

Many snipers perched above Cherno and Elektro probably only carry one ammo clip and just log out when they get down to 1 round...

If they actually had to deal with real ammo scarcity, you would probably be hearing a lot less shots. M24 and M107 rounds in particular are not that easy to come by in nature. It's just that 1-2 clips can last you a month that's the real problem.

I accept that the may be a case for excessive amounts of these weapons in the world at the moment, it doesn't detract from the point made about PvP.

Do you think that PvP should be between players who have a reasonable chance of success, relatively balanced or PvP is carried out at 600 yards+, through a scope, with no fear or taking fire?

[Mojo Jojo 6]

But to answer your questions - I like to think that as the zombie plague swept over the land these places were taken over by the military in a vain attempt to stop the hordes. That's why you get military zombies there.

You have to remember that DayZ is set after the end of the world. Just look at all the wreckage around - all those battles against the undead that were ultimitely futlie. The barricades in even isolated towns. The crashed Humvees, the wrecked helicopters.... It gives me the shivers, I tell you.

If only someone could have told them: Just fight the zombies INSIDE! You can't lose! So much needless slaughter could have been avoided...

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Do you think that PvP should be between players who have a reasonable chance of success, relatively balanced or PvP is carried out at 600 yards+, through a scope, with no fear or taking fire?

I think combat at all distances is legitimate PvP.

And I think it is disingenuous of you to imply that one is balanced and the other is not. There is no "imbalance." You have access to this military equipment just like everyone else, and if you were an intelligent tactician you would by now have assigned a member of your group to sniper duties -- preferably someone with an understanding of the weapons, a calm head and knowledge of the map terrain so he/she knows how to get to an effective vantage-point quickly.

Give him/her an L85A2 or pair him up with a partner who has one. Assign these members of your squad to protect you when you travel together and loot high-value targets or settlements.

I have had my life saved on many occasions by my sniper team because they spot threats before I do and open fire, either scaring off an approaching bandit or eliminating them before they have a chance to engage me in that medium range combat you seem to think is the only way players should be allowed to shoot at each other.

Well, I'm sorry. I planned ahead and have a team so you don't get to get close to me to shoot your AK or your M16 at me. Maybe that makes you sad, but it makes me very happy and it gives me more reason to make friends and have a squad and communicate and cooperate and work together which are all things people on this forum seem to claim this game lacks an incentive to do... well, here's your incentive: if you're tired of snipers, then cooperate with some other survivors and come up with a plan to neutralize or counter their effect on your strategy and game play experience.

If you come under sniper fire, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from using your team to locate and counter-snipe the individual. If he can see you to fire, you can see him to fire back.

If you do not have a sniper, then you will be at a disadvantage. But that's not an "imbalance" any moreso than saying it is imbalanced that a player with a Makarov has an advantage over a player with a hatchet or that a player with a hatchet has an advantage over a player with a flashlight.

You always have the option to flee, or take cover. No legitimate sniper can shoot through walls or terrain.

So, in ultimate answer to your question - I think sniper combat is amazingly well-balanced with the rest of the game and encourages tactical play, communication and squad-based cooperation. Not to mention increasing the tension level immensely.

So it would be a huge loss to the game if sniper rifles were removed.

[Momiji 46]

Not surprising to hear something like this.

Play FPS and all you hear is "Snipers shouldn't be able to quickscope"

Play Military Simulator and "Snipers camp to much"

Without realistic sniping, Day Z would jump straight into free for all deathmatch, everyone having to run around in CQC with assault rifles. People complain enough about DayZ becoming a FFA DM as it is.

Overwatch is the greatest thing a team can have, It's not just snipers that grief, you just don't notice as much when your killed by an AR or Shotgun while unarmed, Griefers come with all guns.

Snipers are fine as they are, It takes some practice and skill to hit targets at long ranges, I have found 1 natural spawned M107 & DMR in my time from a heli, the rest i found in stupidly placed camps. Other than that, not one sniper, never found replacement M107 mags either.

As has been said the ammo/dupe bugs make it impossible to tell how many snipers are naturally spawning till that is fixed, we can't make assumptions, till then buck up and go kill the sniper who shot you, spend time learning the sniper nests or something.

Edited July 27, 2012 by Momiji

[Gogster (DayZ) 626]

I think combat at all distances is legitimate PvP.

And I think it is disingenuous of you to imply that one is balanced and the other is not. There is no "imbalance." You have access to this military equipment just like everyone else, and if you were an intelligent tactician you would by now have assigned a member of your group to sniper duties -- preferably someone with an understanding of the weapons, a calm head and knowledge of the map terrain so he/she knows how to get to an effective vantage-point quickly.

Give him/her an L85A2 or pair him up with a partner who has one. Assign these members of your squad to protect you when you travel together and loot high-value targets or settlements.

I have had my life saved on many occasions by my sniper team because they spot threats before I do and open fire, either scaring off an approaching bandit or eliminating them before they have a chance to engage me in that medium range combat you seem to think is the only way players should be allowed to shoot at each other.

Well, I'm sorry. I planned ahead and have a team so you don't get to get close to me to shoot your AK or your M16 at me. Maybe that makes you sad, but it makes me very happy and it gives me more reason to make friends and have a squad and communicate and cooperate and work together which are all things people on this forum seem to claim this game lacks an incentive to do... well, here's your incentive: if you're tired of snipers, then cooperate with some other survivors and come up with a plan to neutralize or counter their effect on your strategy and game play experience.

If you come under sniper fire, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from using your team to locate and counter-snipe the individual. If he can see you to fire, you can see him to fire back.

If you do not have a sniper, then you will be at a disadvantage. But that's not an "imbalance" any moreso than saying it is imbalanced that a player with a Makarov has an advantage over a player with a hatchet or that a player with a hatchet has an advantage over a player with a flashlight.

You always have the option to flee, or take cover. No legitimate sniper can shoot through walls or terrain.

So, in ultimate answer to your question - I think sniper combat is amazingly well-balanced with the rest of the game and encourages tactical play, communication and squad-based cooperation. Not to mention increasing the tension level immensely.

So it would be a huge loss to the game if sniper rifles were removed.

Now that's the way to debate - obviously from previous posts I don't agree with you, but very well said.

[Gogster (DayZ) 626]

Not surprising to hear something like this.

Play FPS and all you hear is "Snipers shouldn't be able to quickscope"

Play Military Simulator and "Snipers camp to much"

Thanks for proving my point for me - yes I've been playing FPS & military sims for a long time, yes I think the balance of snipers has been out of kilter for a long time.

[Gogster (DayZ) 626]

Can I just say, this guy is wrong:

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/48145-worst-community-ever/

Look at the reasoned discourse and debate in this thread alone. Aside from the odd flippant comment, I think this is a great community. :thumbsup:

[miragexl 33]

I only use a sniper if my clan needs the over-watch numbers.

Most of the time im running around cherno with an axe hatching people.

[lille_bingo-mannen 10]

That's the problem :rolleyes:

If he's able to shoot you without you locating him, should he be punished for it? If YOU can shoot another person without said person can't locate you, SHOULD HE be punished for it? No. BF2's sniper system was awesome, you had to safely locate where the sniper was, and now in BF3 you can just scan the horizon for glints. It's just like nametags, pretty much.

[Gogster (DayZ) 626]

If he's able to shoot you without you locating him, should he be punished for it? If YOU can shoot another person without said person can't locate you, SHOULD HE be punished for it? No. BF2's sniper system was awesome, you had to safely locate where the sniper was, and now in BF3 you can just scan the horizon for glints. It's just like nametags, pretty much.

I'd hardly call it a punishment, also it's much easier to sport someone hosing you with an assault rifle from 60-100 metres than it is when you hear the crack of a shot from 1000 yards and have no clue.

That's the imbalance.

[Larce 8]

I wonder how many people would play a bandit style if there were no sniper rifles?

The background story to this is a session on UK 119 last night. My friend (Kenny) and I were skirting round Berezino in an attempt to get to the military tents on the west of the town.

We're a pretty careful bunch and we spent some considerable time scouting round the woods to the north and south west of the town.

We positioned ourselves in the bushes to the north west of the tents and spent 5 minutes looking through binoculars scouting the buildings, walls and hedgerows and saw nothing.

We started to move slowly down the hill towards Berezino, checking as we went.

Crack Kenny's hit and down.

Hit the deck scout and scout as much as possible looking for the sniper until another shot finished Kenny of and the crack of the bullets start whizzing past my ears.

Can't find the sniper and it is becoming too dangerous to stay put. Break cover and run back up the hills towards the forest with bullets slapping at the dirt by my feet. Zig zagging all the way I make it to relative safety. Eat, drink and move down to the south to meet up with another friend.

Essentially we never saw who hit us. You could say he's playing the game well, but I don't feel it's really PvP with guys being able to take people out from great distances, relatively safe from small arms, machine gun & assault rifle fire.

I know games have struggled to balance snipers over the years. BF in particular - removing prone then introducing a glare from the lens in BF3.

I now turn the table over to you guys to mock and tell me to stop moaning.

Thank you.

Minus the debate here, I wanted to point out a few things you seemed to do wrong in your situation.

1. It's good you scouted the area out, but if someone has a suit on it's hard to see them.

A. If you don't drop your gfx to the lowest settings to make bushes disappear and make it easy to spot players at a distance then you put yourself at a disadvantage. I have everything turned down when I play and so does my clan and we spot people all the time trying to hide in bushes that are not there to us because the gfx for it are off to us.

I don't care if people have a $1000 gfx card and you like the pretty shadows and post processing, I will see them before they see me.

2. You both left and stayed together, slowly moving down the hill huh?

A. That's a ripe target if I ever saw one. Next time, one of you get a head start, while the other stays back a bit or at the tree line and see what happens. You should also be running and zig zagging down that hill, not crouch running and holding hands. That little extra bit of speed can mean life and death, and in this scenerio, it saved your life when you ran back up into the woods.

B. Also make sure if you can approach a town, don't do it in the open, I know sometimes there isn't much cover to some towns going in, but that town does have approaches that have cover or very short gaps between the trees and town.

3. When someone gets sniped, run.

A. In most cases when someone goes down, if you prone you are a dead man as well becuase in most cases the sniper has elevation on you and can still see you while you are prone, it sounds like this was a rare case where the nearby terrain helped you, in flat open fields it's a death sentence and why I avoid them like the plague (I don't go to stary very often due to the fields there).

Here is an example of my clan leader sniping some guys ina field:

If they had run, they would have had a chance.

So my point in all of this is, maybe it's not the guns or the snipers themselves that's all the problem here, some of your tactics and gameplay are not right as well. I had to learn a lot of these lessons the hard way myself when I was new, now snipers don't concern me as I don't put myself in their scopes very often.

[Bottlerocket 205]

You always have the option to flee, or take cover. No legitimate sniper can shoot through walls or terrain.

Actually, no - you don't have any options at all against a sniper. That's the whole point. And in DayZ you cannot stay in cover all the time because you have to go and get supplies.

Now, I agree that the threat of sniper rifles adds a certain frission to the game, but there's just too damn many for it to work IMHO. Get rid of military sniper spawns and make scoped hunting rifles rare.

The Leeroy Enfield has incredible range and killing power. Let them use that instead and have to deal with its 'dinner bell' effect. There should be no easymodes in DayZ. Every action should have an equally unpleasant reaction.

Note that I'm not trying to balance PvP. If you want to snipe, fine. But to do so you're either going to have to hunt high and low through zombie-infested zones to find a scoped rifle, or use the one gun which let's everyone and every Z know you're around.

No to easymodes. Yes to brutal challenges.

[xwhitemousex 67]

I think combat at all distances is legitimate PvP.

And I think it is disingenuous of you to imply that one is balanced and the other is not. There is no "imbalance." You have access to this military equipment just like everyone else, and if you were an intelligent tactician you would by now have assigned a member of your group to sniper duties -- preferably someone with an understanding of the weapons, a calm head and knowledge of the map terrain so he/she knows how to get to an effective vantage-point quickly.

Give him/her an L85A2 or pair him up with a partner who has one. Assign these members of your squad to protect you when you travel together and loot high-value targets or settlements.

I have had my life saved on many occasions by my sniper team because they spot threats before I do and open fire, either scaring off an approaching bandit or eliminating them before they have a chance to engage me in that medium range combat you seem to think is the only way players should be allowed to shoot at each other.

Well, I'm sorry. I planned ahead and have a team so you don't get to get close to me to shoot your AK or your M16 at me. Maybe that makes you sad, but it makes me very happy and it gives me more reason to make friends and have a squad and communicate and cooperate and work together which are all things people on this forum seem to claim this game lacks an incentive to do... well, here's your incentive: if you're tired of snipers, then cooperate with some other survivors and come up with a plan to neutralize or counter their effect on your strategy and game play experience.

If you come under sniper fire, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from using your team to locate and counter-snipe the individual. If he can see you to fire, you can see him to fire back.

If you do not have a sniper, then you will be at a disadvantage. But that's not an "imbalance" any moreso than saying it is imbalanced that a player with a Makarov has an advantage over a player with a hatchet or that a player with a hatchet has an advantage over a player with a flashlight.

You always have the option to flee, or take cover. No legitimate sniper can shoot through walls or terrain.

So, in ultimate answer to your question - I think sniper combat is amazingly well-balanced with the rest of the game and encourages tactical play, communication and squad-based cooperation. Not to mention increasing the tension level immensely.

So it would be a huge loss to the game if sniper rifles were removed.

The point isn't how useful sniper rifles are or not. Of course they are useful, hence why everyone and their mother is either using one, in a team with one or attempting to get one. Sniper rifles is literally the end-game for DayZ as far as DayZ having any end-game in the first place.

The problem is that there is simply too many of them. There is Dragunovs, AS50's, M107, CZ550, M24, DMR. There's more sniper rifles than there are shotguns and handguns in the game.

Yes, it's beneficial to have a sniper as overwatch when you enter towns. There's no doubting that, and if you have a sniper rifle in a team, it's a perfectly logical way to set up. I don't want the scoped rifles removed from the game (except for some of the purely military ones). I belive that IF you got one on the team, then you should have the benefit and safety it provides when doing runs into settlements.

Do I want people to only be able to engage at midrange or close quarters? No.

But right now, there's such an overflow of scoped rifles in the game that the actually gameplay revolves almost exclusively around finding a spot, then snipe people. Only those that recently respawned, or just started the game again, are running around with their goal being finding food and water... and the goal becomming a hunt for a scoped rifle.

So do I want to see a reduction in the amount of snipers, and thus amount of people doing nothing but snipe? Most definitely so.

Scoped rifles should be rare. Really rare. Thus, once you do find one, your team has an invaluable advantage.

My point has always been; the sniper rifles are simply too available, making this a sniper sim moreso than anything else. Only way to move away from the sniper-focused gameplay is to make them less available, or make ammo less available... hence there won't be a sniper fest at every major city, simply because people don't have the guns or the ammo to do so.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

The problem is that there is simply too many of them. There is Dragunovs, AS50's, M107, CZ550, M24, DMR. There's more sniper rifles than there are shotguns and handguns in the game.

Not exactly. There are more types of sniper rifles, not more rifles themselves. The spawn rates and limited spawn locations take care of that.

So do I want to see a reduction in the amount of snipers, and thus amount of people doing nothing but snipe? Most definitely so.

Okay, now we're just arguing in circles.

Every day you have hundreds if not thousands if not tens-of-thousands of these rifles being duplicated. One rifle becomes 2, 4, 8, 16, with just a few mouse clicks. The same goes for the ammunition.

And once an item exists in the game, it is rarely lost. A dead player will almost always be looted by his killer, a friend or himself. So these duplicated rifles disseminate throughout the player population.

So, yes, right now you can legitimately claim that they are more common than they should be. But that doesn't really say anything about whether their spawn rates need to be altered. We can't determine that with any degree of accuracy or legitimate analysis until these duplication exploits are fixed once and for all.

In my purely subjective experience, the rarity of these items is absolutely fine. I have played the game for 600-700 hours or so (I've lost track since I stopped using Steam at 400 hours), and so far I have seen one SVD Dragunov, two AS50's, two M107's, one M24 and maybe a dozen DMR's.

As for ammunition, I found one box that contained SVD Dragunov rounds at a helicopter crash site - never seen another round for it before or since in all my days and travels. AS50/M107 rounds are similarly limited - if it weren't for their clips refilling automatically on reboot, my team would have been without rounds many times. And CZ550's seem to have disappeared from the game - the only time I see them anymore is inside freshly spawned pick-up trucks and how often do you see one of those?

The one rifle that seems a bit too common is the DMR. Maybe. But, again, I would prefer to wait for the duplication and free-ammunition bugs to be fixed before any serious design changes are even discussed let alone implemented.

Making balance choices at this point is like trying to make interior decorating decisions while your house is on fire.

Edited July 27, 2012 by ZedsDeadBaby

[daniel_coates@hotmail.co.uk 4]

I dont understand why its seen as being cool and skilled to be a sniper on video games, you sit in a bush for hours on end, waiting for someone to appear in the distance, take a few shots, kill someone and then run away.

Why is this seen as skillfull and cool?

[Grimlok (DayZ) 134]

Another QQ sniper thread.

[Gogster (DayZ) 626]

Another QQ sniper thread.

Predictable :rolleyes:

[ArakkAttack 10]

Basically, once all the duping exploits are fixed, snipers should be a hell of a lot rarer. I killed 7 people by electro the other day, and every single one of them had an AS50... legit? >_>.

[CyberTyrant 6]

Sniping is fine. I make it my objective to hunt these guys down.

[Jäeger 0]

I think it's to early to do any big changes to weapons without it having a negative effect.

The main problem now is duping, so if the droprate of 50 cals were lowered, the dupers would still be sniping just as much as before - While legit players would have less to counter them with.

The second problem is alt+f4. A lot of the snipers will just alt+f4 the second they realize someone is closing in on them, or hop servers after each kill.

Fixing duping and altf4 would increase the risk of sniping the populated areas, so I'm pretty sure the number of snipers would go down.

A change I would like to see tho, is making the droprate of the m24 higher than the dmr and 50 cals. That would also balance it out abit.

Edit: didn't read the entire thread before i posted. I see that the duping topic is covered.

Edited July 27, 2012 by Jäeger