General feedback/suggestions

[turin turambar 0]

Hi, I was thinking the other day about the good and bad parts of this mod and decided to write a longish post about it, I will put it here and with luck Rocket or other dev will read it. I know a good part of this is coming from the Arma 2 engine and it's not the "fault" of the mod, but in the end that doesn't matter when a user is playing the game.

The concept of the mod is very cool, of course, but the execution is still long ways to go. Of course, thing being an alpha, it means it could be eventually much better. So, my feedback:

First I have to point out that the game is a survival, which actually means is a loot game. You need to loot weapons, ammo, drink, food, equipment, you kill other players for loot, etc. And most (not everything, but most) of the loot is in towns, in houses or barns or warehouses or whatever. And here the mod starts to fail, thanks to the inheritance of Arma 2.

1. Because the engine sucks for cqb. The collision system is grossly exaggerated and the animation system doesn't work for interiors, etc etc. The reasons we all know the game isn't as good in cqb situations as when you are outside in the country.

2. Also, because a good number of times the enemies are zombies, and they take the combat and put it at melee or very short range, where the engine clunkiness shows more than when you are firing at 200mts (the original design of the engine).

3. Because Chernarus barely have enterable buildings. This is not the engine fault, Takistan and Zargabad have 100% enterable buildings, but Chernarus was designed with "fake" houses, you can enter only in 15% of the buildings or less. So you have a mod somehow focused about loot in houses and towns but the scenario isn't well adapted to that.

If/When the mods transforms in a full version, one thing they could do to justify paying for it is to redesign all the houses to have interiors in them.

Second, the stealth system have to improve greatly. Treating with zombies is mostly a stealth game, as you don't really want to call their attention, so stealth gains importance here in the mod.

1. The zombies AI state isn't gradual enough. This happens in lots of games not focused in stealth, the AI goes from normal to hostile very easily, as if was a binary state. While in a proper stealth game the enemy AI goes from neutral to suspicious to searching for enemies to hostile.

2. The AI/zombies gains too much information about your whereabouts with just sound. A shot or a few steps jogging and they seem to know exactly your position, it doesn't matter they didn't have a straight line of sight with you. They seem suspiciously... psychics, which is not good in a stealth game. This comes from the engine, where there is an abstracted system of knowledge of the enemy about your position, and how it gains and loses it with time.

IMO, it should be more lenient (and more realistic), though I suppose it could be hard to code. A shot sound ringing up in the air without any kind of warning makes very hard to know from where it came from, it only should serve to put the AI in "warned" status, maybe know it came from N or S. A second and third shot/sound gives more detail about the direction, like N,S,E,W and a 4th and 5th sound gives you a more concrete direction, like N, NW, W, WS, S, SE, E, NE. But it shouldn't give more than that (if there is no visual indications, of course), while right now if you make enough sound they will guess your position with a 100% accuracy.

3. Is the detection system bugged right now? It needs more polish, because sometimes I was looting a house, crouched AND walking, and even then some zombies came from outside to attack me.

4. As it's designed, once a zombie attack you (and by the previous points, they will do before or latter) there is not real variety in options. Ideally the player should have several ways to act, making each encounter interesting, each option with different odds and pros/cons. I can think of three:

a. Combat. You choose to try to kill the zombie.

b. Re-stealth. You try to lose the zombie around some corners and hide, trying to return to the "stealth mode".

c. Running away.

a) you make noise, it will attract 3 or 4 more zombies, and depending from your luck (and what weapon did you use) it will stop there or killing the 3/4 zombies will attract 12-20 more.

b) It doesn't work, they are psychic.

c) It doesn't work (usually), they are athletes and they don't tire out. A few times it works because they can be bugged in the terrain or be attracted to something else.

So I would try to make b) and c) also work, so the encounters are more interesting with more options for the players. No that they should work always without problems.

Third, the zombie spawn system... it seems still needs more adjustment, sometimes it will spawn zombies out of thin air (or it feels like that), which feels very unfair. And unfair is something bad when you have permadeath in your game. I won't comment anything about the zombie animations because it's clear it needs improvement and the devs know it.

A little detail about the human interaction, I have the feeling that something that harms the odds of making friendly encounters is that in the game everyone is running around with the weapons in hand pointing forward with them, always. Something not very realistic, I imagine IRL people would use their pockets and belts for the handguns and the shoulder for the long weapons. But here, because this comes from a misilm fps, in the moment I find two guys in a house, they are pointing at me with their pistols at my face. Maybe they don't have intention to shoot, because just looking at me means they are aiming at me, but I find hard to trust in them when I know they are a click away to kill me. If people would have the weapons holstered, and only unholster them when they have hostile intentions, it would make easier to trust in others.

But of course, for that to work, the devs would have to make some kind of penalty when running around without the weapon holstered, like a stamina or stealth penalty.

[jpoo78 1]

I will give a +1 much of what you've just mentioned. Zeds pick up on your location very easily and then add to that the fact that WAY too many of the zeds in this mod run the speed of an Olympic athlete. The run speed needs to be reduced and far less zombies should be able to sprint or they should only be able to sprint for short periods. I think the zombies speeds are what is killing this mod for me, it's just too "comical" and immersion breaking to see all the zeds running so fast. Maybe you guys intend them to be sprinters but man, it's a downer.