Please Read: Opinions About Future DayZ

[Lidskjalf 132]

Hey everyone! I would like to take this opportunity to discuss some things - that people I have gamed with online, RL friends and myself collectively came up with - and would like to see in/or changed in DayZ. All of us realize that yes, this is an Alpha MOD and some things that I am going to point out are obvious. I would like to share our vision of this game, and the potential this title really has. Here's my opinions based on gameplay, realism, and the attracted community.

First of all, lets talk about the structure of the game. The idea of an open-world sandbox zombie apocolypse is simply awesome, and anyone who likes those two genres would say the same. I have been a huge fan of the zombie survival games for years, and always will like it. But apart of me - and when I say this I am speaking for many other players - feels like DayZ is going to be THAT game that just caters to the PvP nub's. Now from what I have read and heard from Rocket, he still wants that feeling of a survival game and at the same time have that element of tension between players when they encounter one another. I agree, the PvP aspect of the game should NOT be stifled completely, as it is realistic that people would band together with people they know in a real zombie apocolypse. Trusting strangers would be 100X harder and you would run the risk of being betrayed, raided blind of your supplies or even killed. This is realistic and would happen, but leaving the structure completely based on ruthlessness (meaning as in the f**king neck-beard that sits in the nearby bush with his AS50 one shotting people for absolutely no reason) ruins the gameplay. Now before the neck beards come out in full force, let me tell you that I acknowledge that yes it is apart of the game "atm" and so I should just deal with it.

Having said that, doesn't the gameplay then become something like we've all seen before? As gamers - not the 12 year old community - we have to ask ourselves, is this really... Fun? I don't know about the rest of you people, or even Rocket himself; are you not tired of the same childs play that we experience with every FPS out there on the market?! Like where's the FUN in sniping people all day? Or hacking peoples servers like FTC? Everyone who thinks the same thing, would agree that this kind of gameplay experience is dull, selfish, childish, and completely focusing the structure of the game on the self-centered idiots that RUIN awesome titles.

Encourage Teamwork.

What I am about to propose Rocket is something that may potentially push away many people, but also WILL attract players like me and my group of friends. I know what the kind of game platform you are looking to is "here's a can of beans, go fuck yourself" which is really awesome for realism and I will admit that's what made me interested in this mod. But honestly, you can't really apply that of formula to the end result of the gameplay (and not saying you do :P ). Everybody who has played the mod has realized that at one point or another, they encounter that kind of childishness that in real life wouldn't exist. I understand that you cannot change peoples reactions to specific situations, but you can change that environment for those players so that opening fire on someone has VERY EXTREME repercussions, and that it IS better to help each other instead of being a dick head. For example: say you were fortunate enough to be equipped with small arms, and you encountered a few well armed and uninfected people in a small rural area. There are zombies everywhere, and are extremely dangerous - do you run the risk of shooting these people WITHOUT even making some sort of communication and drawing every zombie in the area? I mean think about it, people would be so glad to see that there's people that could help you let alone some idiot trying to kill someone for a "better gun". DUAHAHA! I mean common, seriously? Is this not a "Zombie Survival Game"?? Everyone in that kind of environment would be shitting their pants in real life! ^_^

Base this game on "Fun" and teamwork and I guarantee you will attract alot more people that want the exact same thing as I do. I am saying is lessen the PvP crap and make it WAY harder to survive by yourself instead of this "one man army" crap that all these nubs want without making the game easy mode. Because really, what is the even the point of the game if all your motivated on doing is "pew pewing" other players? Like really go play CoD. Or wait, I heard this - Buy MoH: WF and get BF4 Beta access!!!!!!! FUCK YA!!!! (Laughter in disgust) ;)

Suggestions:

1. Make Weapons and Ammo more rare - This may define the line between peoples regards for safety and willingness to help others. I suggest having the final product set in an normal north american land mass, somewhere based in a civilian area so it would be worth it to conserve ammo for the hordes of zombies rather then pew pewing players. Take note that yes I do understand that currently it is based on a military attack in Chernarus, and it would make sense that military grade weaponry would be more prominent. Though this is true, I find its apart of the PvP problem. People just end up getting these .50 cal snipers and just run around in ghillies acting like morons and hunt players because there is no collective structure in the game yet. Then right there, it becomes not a zombie survival game but just a search and destroy type of "end game" if you so wish to call it.

So think about it, you make:

Military grade weapons exeedingly rare = less fighting over stupid weapons that shouldn't even be in the game (Personally I think anything that one shot's a person should be taken out, just too cheap when fighting other players)

Ammo rare for everything and even worse for military grade weapons = players using their brain and try to communicate with one another before shooting

Like I said above I hope the end result of this game isn't going to be in a military scenario, because then it gives those nubs with that PvP kind of mentality to sit in bushes all day and grief players, taking away the whole survival experience from it. I can say that there should be more prominent ammunition like shotgun shells, three o' eight shells and you would be even lucky to find lump sums of pistol rounds, 9mm or .45

2. Make zombies and PvPing other players a huge risk. The zom's are literally everywhere and there are hardly any so called "safe spots" so that if you do fire at other players, say hello to Mr. & Mrs. Zom Zom's! :) (Cities should be impossible to get out of, realistically who would stand a chance in say New York?) This would also be taking in consideration what kind of scenario you place the world in. To be perfectly honest it wouldn't have to be anywhere relevent on earth to suit my fancy, but I would really like to see a lot more creativity with the map and different terrain design once you get the resources!! Very excited to see what you guys can come with to make the game look, feel and seem like a realistic zombie scenario!! :D

3. Make a persons actions have repercussions. - Why shouldn't they? You don't think that people wouldn't notice murderers stalking in your town? I am not entirely certain on how you can implement this (without having name tags, which IMO is nubby and should be an option as it is now) but from what I have brain stormed with others is that you could incorporate things like cannibalism, insanity, and maybe be more prone to sickness over time & become more dramatic on your character. I mean realistically, whats stopping a person from acting like a cannibal? You would obviously go insane over time, especially rolling as a "lone wolf" murdering other players. And you would obviously become more sickly if you were a cannibalist, have maybe visual scarring of the facial tissue and a lighter greyish tone to their characters skin tone. This again is a neat idea that I think would add another layer to the gameplay, would make people communicate, and would have reprecussions on that person that murders people. This would be an attempt to stifle child play, yet not completely taking that PvP essence away from the game.

4. Maybe have sickness more prominent? - Having stated above that murders should have some sort of penalty whether it be from sickness to insanity, the regular joe should experience some sort of sickness as well. There are plague driven zombies everywhere, why wouldn't there be? Make it so there's high stakes everywhere you go, and that if people are sick around you they need treatment!

5. Make the game even scarier! - I think many would agree, especially PvP nubs, that they love the rush of intensity when they are raiding someones camp, sneaking up on someone and going for that stealth kill - Oh the dramatic music!! Please, more. Personally I would love to see this game a real psychological thriller as well as horrifying visual experience, and I love the intensity that is intended. It would be realistic, I mean imagine how intense would that be by yourself in an abandoned small town, going into a house in the middle of the night unarmed with just a flashlight and you walk into a room of a few Zoms having a gourmet meal off of a recent players corpse. Wouldn't you have that shiver down your spine in complete fear? Just that alone would make this game so much better than anything else that is out there. Hands down for a scarier gameplay experience with those blue faced bastards!

6. Need to have a variety of melee weapons. - From a 2X4 on edge to a combat knife, why not? I would also be nice to see that a melee weapon (depending on its size) would have its own socket, so you could roll with a small hatchet, a side arm (only if you had a pistol holster) and a primary (if you even found one).

7. Make the terrain more dynamic. - I find just running through the forest is quite monontonous and it would be sweet to see some variety in simple things like trees, rivers, ravines, ocean channels, etc.

Obvious Fixes:

1. Gotta Make Zom's pathing a bit better. - Its so terrible trying to shoot them :(

2. The inventory system. - This is understandable considering its a mod (I have gotten used to it though!), but it could use a big overhaul. One big interactable interface should pop up whether picking items up or looking through your bag. A click and drag system would work fine and you could even work in say a 5 second timer when stopping to look into your inventory, picking up or unloading items, and swapping backpacks that are sitting on the ground. Also I would like to see that when say you find an Alice pack and you have some stuff in your Czech pack that you can just click an unload button and it would dump all of what you have in your previous pack into your new pack (of course, having a load time of how ever many seconds). This would still put in the realism in the game that you actually have to stop, eat & drink, or pick up items for a few seconds that could potentially expose you to combat. It could show what items are on the ground vs what you have in your pack or what you want to drop in a tent. As well it would be sweet if we could see how many actual slots (like when you open up your alice pack for example) on say maybe a tent or truck, so you have an exact idea of how much it can hold. As well it shouldn't be allow you to keep throwing stuff in say a tent when its already full and just drop it on the ground beside you. I know that many times I've thrown a tent up and it says it has slots to hold more and all of a sudden its full then all my ammo is scattered on the ground. Kinda poopy :P

3. Duplicating items in Tents. - Quite nubilicious, though quite an important thing if you want to combat nubs that do the same thing. Take that out and that will increase the intensity for resources once again. And obviously make tents save the content within them.

4. Hacking. - Welcome to the Thunderdome. All I gotta say.

5. Hosting Servers. - Now this may come down to MPO, but I do think that you guys should have some control of the servers. Like a lot of people I play with, we are tired of being griefed every hour by some idiot admin who keeps resetting the server so he can find a helicopter. (FYI, don't add those in please. Seriously, whats the point of a heli in a zombie game ?? Wouldn't you fly away from the infections with supplies and set up a camp somewhere on an island or something safe? Realistically, :huh: <--- lol?) I find it kinda nubby and would like some decent dedicated servers that aren't going to go down every time I go to play with my friends. I understand its an alpha and all, and that there needs to be resets but it would be nice to see some servers from you guys that are trustworthy. Let the nubs have private servers if they wish as well, but I don't want to come to a server where people just hog vehicles and expect everyone to give them all to the owners of the servers. Tough luck I say!

6. Make those white boats faster god dammit! - The first time I found one of those little white cruise boats I thought - oh fuck ya, I am gonna just giver up the coast and set up my camp in no time. You can say I walked instead.

As off-topic as it is, this is why I have admire Arenanet and their platform for Guild Wars 2. They want to bring back having fun while playing games, not a game that makes you behave or play a certain way just because the game or game community says so. I really wanted to give you that inspiration, and I hope the DayZ team will think of things that would make this survival sandbox game "fun", realistic and motivated to survive one of humanities worst doomsday events.

Again these are just my ideas as a collective with input from friends that have played the mod quite a bit. I can't really remember if thats all the ideas we came up with but this is the majority of it. Don't be too critical, I know its an alpha ;)

Don't be scared of the wall of text,

Lidskjalf :beans:

[DemonGroover 8836]

You've put a lot of effort into this, well done.

One thing i do agree on is that high end military weapons should be exceedingly rare. In fact go to many parts of the world and ANY type of gun would be a rarity. To me, finding a good gun should be a "YES!!" moment, not a "An M16 - how shit!" moment.

So yes, less weapons and make the Zeds much more dangerous.

As for more scares - definitely. Ramp them up!

[Lidskjalf 132]

Thank you DemonGroover.

And yeah I would have to agree haha. I don't know how many times my friends and I came across the same kind of attitude when seeing maybe the M4 CCO or w/e its called or the AK Kobra and we've just dropped it because there were better guns out there like the Bison with a 64 round clip or a Mk 48 Mod O - it doesn't help the gameplay either when you can just duplicate those items inside tents. I figure the same thing, there seems to be too much selection for people with weapons - beggars can't be chosers and thats how it would be irl.

:)

Also as well, I forgot to add in last night a few other ideas that I forgot to throw in the suggestion box:

1. Maybe incorporate a fatigue bar. - This would make fighting zed's extremely hard but realistic in the fact that okay, a person would get tired over a short period of time. I think it's safe to say that running like a boss from cherno to berezino, would really wear on a persons physical fatigue let alone mental fatigue knowing that you had a mob of zom's on your tail. I find this might be a neat think to tie together with something like a morale bar, where if you are tired and alone for an extended period of time it would wear on a persons mental health and would maybe affect the persons physical abilities. It would be pretty hard to find a positive reason why you should keep fighting when all around you see is death and decay of a previous society. That's really why I think there should be a morale bar, because it would force the survival aspect before the "shoot without question" mentality that is gonna eventually ruin the game. So that these 12 year olds that sit around camping cities would have to contribute to something collective; something these people in real life would cherish when in that exact situation.

2. Make communication between players easier/general chat. - I have no idea why they took this out, but I find when you do find someone they usually just shoot you on sight. We gotta take in consideration that there will be some people that don't have mic's and wont be able to convey if they're friendly or not over public chat. Anything would be nice, some character animations or voice actions so people would know that person isn't going to fire when you come up the stairs. I mean realistically people should have a mic and would kinda be their fault, but it would be nice to just have it in the game just in case something like that ever did happen. Maybe if your a bandit and murdered some people you could tell people off like "Get fucked" so that a person would know that he was indeed not friendly. I find this is a really big issue, especially having no general chat but only having a local chat that is so tedious and by the time you do get to type something off, the person already shot you down. IMO this is a major thing to look at improving :lol:

3. Make more interaction for Camp making. - From what I have read Rocket seems like he wants this part of the game to be more in-depth, which I find is awesome because that is one of the only things that is keeping me attatched to this mod. I love camp building, and I think it would be sweet to see more items that could be incorporated into the game like being able to scavenge branches from spruce trees to maybe make your own lean-to or to make your previous tent more camouflaged in the woods. Some of my ideas may be out there for playability but they may be sweet to the base builders like myself. Like I said, this alone was and really is the only thing that makes me keep playing this mod. Maybe some other things to add in might be that you could set up a water funnel contraption so that everytime it rains in game you'll get a certain amount of water. This may be a cool idea when way out in the sticks and not nearby a river or any water resource for miles; things similar to what you could possibly find in a survivalist camp. Not sure how that kind of base building would work out for gameplay wise, but it would be sweet to see something similar of some sort when making clan bases, or just a way point for characters, etc. Also maybe you could make it so that lone wolfs have to sit around a camp fire more often than other players that roll in groups of people just to increase that persons morale. Maybe ? :P

4. Make more enterable buildings. - This is an obvious one B)

5. Make the chances of Zombies breaking your bones lower. - IMO I don't see how even a few zombies with the same amount of strength as a regular person could break someones leg out of no where. I mean I can see if these zom's are supposed to be super zom's and had super strength, but to be honest I cant see that happening IRL. Maybe if a swarm of like eight zombies came out of no where in the city and were pounding on you while you were prone. Even then its more realistic that they would knock you out pretty easy, aka from all the face/curb stomping :P. Also IMO I am finding the zombies range of aggro is kind of sketchy. I found myself rolling many times with a friend in a ghilie, crouch running atleast 50 meters or more behind a tree line and still aggro'ed the zombies - huh? Lol, that should be toned a bit down as well just for gameplay wise unless your going for that super zombie flu type.

6. Maybe make clothing a bit customizable. - I am finding the only kind of clothing that is worth even wearing is a ghilie, obviously. But I don't think it wouldn't hurt to see some clothing customization on your toon. I mean IMO, the current camouflage that is in the game is kinda pathetic. What kind of person would leave their arms and head exposed without any kind of face paint or wouldnt wear a boonie hat or long sleeve shirts, considering the fact there's things out there like poison ivy that irritate the skin on contact. Realistically, it would make sense to add this in not only for fancy, but for gameplay wise as well.

7. Improve animations. - Also an obvious one that will undoubtedly improve with the engine as the game progresses towards the stand-alone.

But all is well. I am having really high hopes for this game, and I am hoping that it will be that game to set the bar for FPS's with something that is new and re-playable, interesting and yet realistic, scary and mainly just plain out "Fun"!! Keep 'er up Rocket, many people besides myself think you can make this mod into a great game that will kick games like CoD and BF right in the nuts! Everyone's sick of playing those games, give us that fun back again! (Just don't get greedy with teh nub monies like EA :))

Sincerely,

Lidskjalf :beans:

[jackarougi@gmail.com 3]

Also add more animals to the game, ones that can attack you maybe..?

[indominator 95]

sir, i have a neck in my big unshaved beard, and also i am an KOS bandit, but i to tell you the thruth, like to kill, but i am too nervous to go hunting other players, i see myself as more of a builder, a bandit one working for my clan, still KOS, i am more like the medic. I totally agree with you, this is a mod and needs more upgrades, despite of bug fixing, so one thing i would ask of your list, making visual cues that can tell if certain cities are pvp or not, like elektro or cherno, those places would get rundown, we all know its not that dangerous as people say in here, but the easier way to loot is in there, maybe with decaying buildings, piles of bodies, etc we would feel more of a dynamic flow to the cities.

Well, we also need the new arma 3 engine, its awesome

[FuzzyPooka 20]

I heartily agree with you. As for a map, a perfect place is New York. Huge city in the middle. Surrounded by farmland. Albany is a rural city area. Mountains and forests up North. And, massive military base for New York Mountain Division.

But.

I am disappointed in your biased opinion on 12 years olds and popular FPSs. Firstly, 12 year olds don't hack, and don't form bandit clans and camp military spawns. In fact, they are more likely to trust and follow another player than any other person. The BattleField community is in an uproar over the MoH BF4 bull. EA is changing our beloved shooter into a year based moneymaker, forsaking the tactical vehicle combat that started it.

Regardless, your post is brilliant.

[Lidskjalf 132]

Also add more animals to the game, ones that can attack you maybe..?

Yes it would be awesome, and that was actually another thing that I forgot to add into my thread. I agree 100%!

sir, i have a neck in my big unshaved beard

Hahah, I had a good laugh at this :) And to be honest I don't mind people being bandits at all, I mean it is a pretty cool dynamic layer that adds to the game when a group of people want to organize and do clan wars. I just find that if that's all the game revolves around, it might become just that and not a zombie survival game. I would like to see some better ways to communicate, so that when someone like me and my group of friends encounter a bandit clannie like yourself, we could actually negotiate instead of SoS :huh:

I am disappointed in your biased opinion on 12 years olds and popular FPSs. Firstly, 12 year olds don't hack, and don't form bandit clans and camp military spawns

What I meant by the 12 year old community is really the mentality of most FPS players nowadays, a lot of people act so childish that it is hard to decipher who's the real 12 year old. :P But I agree and thank you, I appreciate the positive feedback.

Lidskjalf :beans: