The biggest problems facing DayZ right now

[switch296 20]

Hey guys, I'm a huge fan of DayZ, have logged hundreds of hours on the mod and am one of the admins of SouthCoastBeanWars.com and just wanted to give my viewpoint on what the biggest problems with DayZ are at the moment. Obviously yes, the game is in alpha and I am not complaining, merely giving my viewpoint to try and help the game get past these issues.

Hacking and duping - The absolute biggest problem right now is that hacking and duping is running rampant across the entire game. At any given point in time I find that the majority of ANZ, NZ and AU servers that I play on are either in the process of being hacked or is broken from being nuked, thunderdomed, carpet bombed, etc. Sadly, the reason hacking is so prevalent in DayZ as I understand it lies at the very core of the game engine so it really looks like this won't be fixed until the game is standalone. Rocket has spoken many times about how DayZ has a finite lifespan as a mod and me and my friends keep thinking that well perhaps DayZ has reached the end of that lifespan.. the game is nigh unplayable in any serious capacity at the moment due to hacking.

Loot inflation - This no doubt stems from hacking and duping but also, in a much lesser way stems from there being no way to take loot out of circulation other than people dying in vehicles out in the middle of nowhere/zombies (Pretty rare if the player is experienced). This is something I expressed concern with a month or so into the alpha and now look at the game.. there is so many pairs of night vision, 50 calibre sniper rifles, thermal L85s and so on that I find more tents filled with those items than I do things like lee enfields and CZ550's. Even if hacking and duping was fixed tomorrow and a database wipe happened, if the mod was played for a year by everyone at the end of that year we would have the same problem we have now with the highest tier military loot being EVERYWHERE.. there needs to be some way to take this stuff out of circulation.

Lack of "endgame" - This is something Rocket has already said he is working on, things like base building and the like but I have to ask is that even enough. At the moment once people are geared up there is almost nothing to do besides hunt other players.. Sure, there are other little distractions like base hunting, filling up your tents with loot, collecting vehicles and such but that all gets old really quickly.. even with base building like Rocket has said he is working on, will that really be enough? People are just going to get bored once they have a near perfect base and will start once again, hunting people.. I'm not really sure what the solution here is and it would depend on what kind of game you want DayZ to be.

The way vehicles are handled - This is coming from someone who had a clan that hoarded almost every single vehicle across multiple servers - the way vehicles are handled at the moment is terrible, what is more disappointing is that at least to me, this seems like one part of the game Rocket has stopped developing, at least for now. What I feel would be much funner is if vehicles were no longer able to store loot (To avoid them becoming glorified loot storage, sitting out in a bush somewhere) and were reset perhaps more often than every 7 days.. I'm not sure how often would be acceptable but I feel like 7 days is too long. Perhaps 48 or 72 hours? I also think it would be great if the amount of vehicles were greatly increased where as fuel should be made incredibly rare - Why would people want 10 different vehicles if they can barely scrape by the fuel for one?

Once again, to try and avoid the RDF trying to string me up and beat me with blunt objects, this is merely my thoughts on the issues DayZ currently has which I am sure will be greatly improved upon if not completely resolved by the time DayZ is a fully released standalone game. That will happen a lot quicker if we give good feedback :)

Edited August 5, 2012 by Switch

[omgwtfbbq (DayZ) 1069]

*reads title of post*

hm...let me guess...hacking?

*reads first sentence of second paragraph*

yep i win the forum guessing game. again.

Edited August 5, 2012 by omgwtfbbq

[ZigZagZed 1]

but it's true. hacking is the biggest problem. i come across hackers and hacked gear daily

[omgwtfbbq (DayZ) 1069]

but it's true. hacking is the biggest problem. i come across hackers and hacked gear daily

only found one, never been killed by one. us servers ftw

[ZigZagZed 1]

only found one, never been killed by one. us servers ftw

u should buy a lotto ticket

[SmashT 10907]

only found one, never been killed by one. us servers ftw

US servers are riddled with hackers...

[switch296 20]

only found one, never been killed by one. us servers ftw

That's really lucky for you but fact of the matter is that hacking is an epidemic right now - The majority of my clan has simply given up on the game because of it. I've been nuked, thunderdomed or carpet bombed a dozen or so times in the last 48 hours.

Even Rocket himself was "thunderdomed" on a machinima live stream the other day.

But yeah guys, don't let the thread just become discussion for hacking as there is already a thousand threads for that - please give your thoughts on the other issues I brought up :)

Edited August 5, 2012 by Switch

[FaceAche 69]

Actually I went into a US server just for the lulz to see it really is that bad. My conclusion yes it's really that bad, got thunderdomed instantly I aborted of course. I'll just stick with my usual servers.

[Deathcall 101]

I think it would be contradictory to allow players a "permanent" base and then make vehicles reset every 48 hours.

In all fairness, what you say is quite true. Hacks and duping are making it so there's many more geared people than there should be. Normally, the majority of players should be running around with pistols and low-end rifles, instead, we got snipers and thermal-vision along with night-vision and grenade launchers laying siege to high-populated towns.

You got to remember, though, that it has been previously stated (several times) that DayZ is an anti-game, so you can't really expect it to provide an "end-game" experience. DayZ is what you make it. I encourage you to aim for more social goals such as community building and interaction. After all, this is a zombie apocalypse game, not Fallout, if zombies out there to kill us all can't make most of the people bunch up together to survive, I don't know what will.

EDIT

Yes to less fuel. Idea for standalone: Limit the capacity of the fuel tanks we use to fill the jerry cans with and give them a timer before they refill (say a week or more). Create new building: Refinery. Toy around with the idea of it working as an asset (similar to how other resource buildings such as farms or ammunition stores could be).

Edited August 5, 2012 by Deathcall

[Boogiepop 2]

I have been getting into servers with cheaters/hackers more each day it seems...

[daze23 549]

That's really lucky for you but fact of the matter is that hacking is an epidemic right now - The majority of my clan has simply given up on the game because of it. I've been nuked, thunderdomed or carpet bombed a dozen or so times in the last 48 hours.

that often? stay away from those servers

I've only seen a few hacks in the month and a half I've been playing this. an invisible guy was trolling me one time in stary. I saw a few helicopters (when they weren't spawning) and a-10's, but they never did anything to me. one time my legs just broke and I died, I guess that was hacking. I was teleported once. and that's about it. I play on random US servers btw

[Dimes123 60]

Hackers, Abusive admins, Vehicles hoarded, thermal vision, night vision (without batteries), Artifacting

[switch296 20]

I think it would be contradictory to allow players a "permanent" base and then make vehicles reset every 48 hours.

In all fairness, what you say is quite true. Hacks and duping are making it so there's many more geared people than there should be. Normally, the majority of players should be running around with pistols and low-end rifles, instead, we got snipers and thermal-vision along with night-vision and grenade launchers laying siege to high-populated towns.

You got to remember, though, that it has been previously stated (several times) that DayZ is an anti-game, so you can't really expect it to provide an "end-game" experience. DayZ is what you make it. I encourage you to aim for more social goals such as community building and interaction. After all, this is a zombie apocalypse game, not Fallout, if zombies out there to kill us all can't make most of the people bunch up together to survive, I don't know what will.

I totally know what you mean by saying DayZ is an anti-game and yes, it is true that Rocket has said this. But, Rocket has also stated he is working on endgame.. I totally know what you mean by the game can't have a linear path of what you do but what I mean by end game is things we can do in game once we are fully geared up and have gotten past the initial "survive" stage of the game.. we need to be able to survive and then thrive somehow. Through making bases, farming, which then create communities like what you are talking about. Having anarchy and chaos is good but we need to be able to work towards rebuilding the world which I think would really bring people together and hopefully stop a lot of the constant kill-on-sight attitude that players have at the moment.

[Frisqy 4]

I totally know what you mean by saying DayZ is an anti-game and yes, it is true that Rocket has said this. But, Rocket has also stated he is working on endgame.. I totally know what you mean by the game can't have a linear path of what you do but what I mean by end game is things we can do in game once we are fully geared up and have gotten past the initial "survive" stage of the game.. we need to be able to survive and then thrive somehow. Through making bases, farming, which then create communities like what you are talking about. Having anarchy and chaos is good but we need to be able to work towards rebuilding the world which I think would really bring people together and hopefully stop a lot of the constant kill-on-sight attitude that players have at the moment.

Making bases and building a community... awesome, but how?

The way i see this now is that tent camps are just being used for their owners that die and just run back and can instantly gear up again and keep on going with whatever they had in mind. Sometimes i play with my brother nephew and aunt. If one of us dies we just run to our tent and gear ourselfs up again and do w/e we want to do. As of now i cant think of any benefits for bases that tents cant already give unless we would be able to have clan wars and what not. The zed's themself dont pose any significant thread that you need to have a base to hide in either and use those bases to increase survivability to get to a higher level in the game. Unless some changes are being made to the game themself where you might need a base or a tent camp for anything other then gearing yourself up again and need different load outs for different areas and situations they might become a little more usefull then just gearing yourself up again.

[neo2157 21]

I think adding a 50% chance for gear to be destroyed on being shot would work as a good item sink, and it makes some sense since if you shoot a guy with 15 ak rounds in the back you'll probably destroy half his gear IRL. for guns adding durability might help, the way i see it this scavanged guns have probably been used by someone else for awhile and in various states of disrepair from the start.

[switch296 20]

I think adding a 50% chance for gear to be destroyed on being shot would work as a good item sink, and it makes some sense since if you shoot a guy with 15 ak rounds in the back you'll probably destroy half his gear IRL. for guns adding durability might help, the way i see it this scavanged guns have probably been used by someone else for awhile and in various states of disrepair from the start.

I think this would be a great solution, although I do predict the majority of people will dislike this.. but at the end of the day, it's much better than having almost every single player you come across kitted out with nvgs/gps/thermals/as50, etc.

[Bredpath 0]

I've actually never seen a hacker, I know I got killed by one once when every single person on the server died at the same time, and I also don't even know how to dupe things yet.

[random51 172]

only found one, never been killed by one. us servers ftw

I've died twice in the past 2 weeks, both times to hackers who killed me with a teleport before I could do anything.

If you think US servers are somehow immune I can only imagine you were dropped on your head as a child, multiple times.

[Shag 90]

Some good points.

I think that tents and vehicles saved to you should disappear the second you die. I like the idea of a tent to store some weapons/ammo/food, so you can plan your load for whatever you are about to try. However, tents/vehicles that don't despawn the second you die spoil the permadeath mechanic.

I'm sure this would be an easy change to make.

[switch296 20]

Some good points.

I think that tents and vehicles saved to you should disappear the second you die. I like the idea of a tent to store some weapons/ammo/food, so you can plan your load for whatever you are about to try. However, tents/vehicles that don't despawn the second you die spoil the permadeath mechanic.

I'm sure this would be an easy change to make.

I also think this would be a great idea. Have tents as a backup weapon/survival gear storage instead of "I'm going to put 10 pairs of NVGs, GPS, Rangefinders and 50 calibre sniper rifles" storage :)

I totally agree that permadeath is ruined by having tents that save gear after death and it sucks.