Death in DayZ

[Leo (DayZ) 1]

First off I'd like to thank Rocket and the other developers of DayZ for this awesome and unique mod. I am a mod developer myself and know how much work and dedication it takes to make something like DayZ a reality. Thank you!!!

I've been playing DayZ for a while now and I think I'm ready to provide some feedback. There are lots of small things that bother me but I won't be mentioning any of that. The mod is still in alpha and its better to focus on the large mechanics of the game first.

The subject I chose to talk about is death in DayZ. Death from PvP in praticular.

DayZ is a survival game. People can walk around for hours moving to new locations and gathering better gear.

But you can be killed by a single bullet of another player, or if you are unlucky a zombie can break your bone or even faint you at pretty high levels of blood. The point is your adventure can end before you know it. The way death works in DayZ is one of the biggest reasons why its such a great experience to play. But I am of the opinion that death comes a little too fast. It would be nice if players could develop ways of protecting themselves from death and if some weapons are nerfed.

You could have had the most epic gear in the world and it wouldn't save you. there could be 5 of your buddies around your corpse and there won't be anything they can do. The only thing you can do is respawn at a random position and hope it's close to your corpse. Running back to your corpse and continuing your previous life might not be intended by design, but what about the buddies you were hanging out with before? Are you supposed to find new friends? Join a new ventrilo server? Thats just not going to happen. You can better embrace the way people want to play the game and allow it to work in a more realistic way.

Lets use an example that I experienced myself. Me and two of my buddies run into a group of enemy survivors. A gunfight starts. Once the fight is over all enemies are dead but also me and one of my buddies is dead. There is only one survivor. 83% of the players involved in that fight have lost the game. They are dead and lost all their gear. That doesn't make sense. Me and my buddies have won the fight. Not only have most of the "winnners" lost their gear, the winners team is also split up now because of the respawns. Its going to take a long time until everyone finds eachother again to continue to have fun.

Five dead corpses and only one guy to loot it also creates another very annoying situation. The five players who died respawned at the beach and the first thing they are going to do is run towards those corpses to loot them. It creates a very dumb battle which lasts forever, while one team originally already won.

I believe these "problems" can be fixed relatively easy but still be done well. These are my suggestions:

1. Buff the "unconscious timer" mechanic.

Currently there is a "unconscious timer" mechanic in place which sometimes faints a player when he gets really close to death. He won't be able to do anything during that time and requires a friend to heal him in order to stay alive. Or else he will bleed to death. This is a really nice mechanic. It draws people together because if you want to live, you need a teammate to revive you in case you faint. And when you are trying to play the game with friends its easy to stay together. You can revive each other after all. No need to respawn at the beach and run around for an hour. Just keep playing all the time.

But a player hardly ever goes unconscious atm. They just die right away. And when they do become unconscious they bleed out really fast. A player should go unconscious 100% of the time when he is about to die. Instead of dieing he faints and starts bleeding out. It should also take longer to bleed out. I'm thinking around 3 minutes.

This mechanic is nice, but too small at the moment to make a difference. If these changes go in players who team up will always stay together. Live together & die together. For many people a game is about having fun with your friends. ...or is it? Imagine this: two groups of people get into a gunfight with each other. One guy goes down in the open and goes unconscious. His buddies are all behind cover. Now what decision will they make? Risk their own life to save him? Or will they leave him to die?

2. No one shot/uber fast kills.

Even in FPS games its annoying to get one shot killed. You had no chance to react and you have no idea what actually happened. you just died. If you wouldn't get one shotted in DayZ there are at least some options you have if you have been shot: Run away, run for cover or try to fight back. More control over what happens with your character is more fun.

But the more important reason there shouldn't be one shot kills is because people simply shouldn't die so fast in a game like this. you spend hours on your one life, finding better gear and moving to new locations. It is just too unforgiving to die so fast. Not much words of argumentation, but thats all there is to it really.

Some weapons that I noticed can one shot and could use a damage nerf(not complete list by any means): Lee enfield, CZ 550.

I named these two weapons because they are so easy to acquire. If a player manages to get a M24 sniper he could expect it to pack a punch. The M24 and other weapons are also much more rare so it doesn't impact the game that much. Its still fine if a player 1 shots someone via a headshot I guess, as long as he can still be revived afterwards with the unconscious mechanic.

With these changes the "running from respawn to my corpse for loot" problem shouldn't occur that much anymore too. Altho I do believe its still pretty dumb. Dead is dead. Just implement something which stops a player from getting the loot from his dead body back, or at least if he is alone. I think with these changes doing that is justified.

Thats my feedback. I hoped I explained my reasons for these suggestions well enough, and hopefully you can do something with it!

Regards,

Leo

[JohnSteele 0]

Good post tbh.

[Sarissofoi 40]

I have other suggestion.

Death is serius bussines.

When you get killed or die you get perma banned from DayZ.

[logan23 118]

The game is brutal and if you take that away then it loses it's tension, fear, excitement.

When walking into this game for the first time- you should expect to get killed often and quickly but as you learn more form each experience you learn what not to do and ways to better survive and in doing so you feel rewarded for being smart and clever as you move from location to location in the game.

As some said before this game will not be for everyone and it's design that way.

[Vuash 0]

[Leo (DayZ) 1]

@logan23

If my suggested changes are implemented a player will still drop relatively fast. He might take one or two bullets extra, giving him time to react to a standard situation. Perfectly set up ambushes will still drop people just as easy. And even though he is still alive while fainted and bleeding out, he won't be able to fight back anymore or move.

In my opinion the game actually loses its tension, fear and excitement when you die. Or at least, when you die without even realizing what happened. How exiting is it to be under enemy fire? or when you have to revive your fallen friend while enemies are nearby.

Or what if your random buddy betrays you? At the moment you just die. Your hatred is still there but you can't do anything. But lets say you have a chance of surviving his betrayal. Now the game allows you to truly live your hatred towards the person who betrayed you.

[clever 12]

In your example, the group died fast because you engaged an enemy group head on in a firefight. You're suppose to die fast from bullets, it's how it works in real life.

[Leo (DayZ) 1]

In your example' date=' the group died fast because you engaged an enemy group head on in a firefight. You're suppose to die fast from bullets, it's how it works in real life.

[/quote']

Sadly the zombie apocalypse is not real. This is a game, a tool for people to socialize. If you bring in realism arguments you can just as well get rid of all the zombies. DayZ: Office life simulator.

[Bladez 0f Fury 33]

Even in normal Arma 2 all guns (excluding pistols) are OHK. Don't change the gun damage, unless you can do limbs. 3 shots on arms and legs, 1 shot on chest/Head with rifles. 6 shots with pistol and 3 chest 1 head. IRL (which as far as I know this is a Zombie Realism Mod) No normal average human would know how to patch up a gun wound to the chest thus being a one shot then they go into bleed out mode. As for head shot. Instant death. The only way you will survive a headshot is if it was a 9mm round. So that should be insta death. As for legs and arms, breaks the bones and makes you loose blood. Making it realistic. Anyone can bandage a leg or arm correctly.

As for loosing you group.

I just wish they had a way to spawn on your group. or make a Group IN game and beable to put a Passcode on the group so only you and your friends can join, but then you can spawn on them, or teleport to them once every 4 hours.

Just my two pennies.

[bowlin12 0]

If you're shot in the chest IRL you're probably going to die pretty soon depending on the caliber. The makarov takes around 2 clips (Sometimes) to even kill someone with chest shots, that might not be entirely realistic but it's as close as it gets. Don't mess with weapon damage, you should be able to revive your teammates with defibrillators. (And I know people are going say "That's so unrealistic!!11!", well I can fix my broken bones with morphine, bandage any wound completely. Oh I can also fix every damage on my body by getting a blood transfusion.)

[dharion@drahl.com 5]

Understand your point OP, but honestly this is fine as it is. If you get shot in the head you won't bleed out for 3 minutes, you are dead. You should be dead.

"This is a game, a tool for people to socialize."

Yes and no. This is an experiment, it also got called an anti-game. Yes, zombie apocalypse ain't real, but what if it was real? what would happen? DayZ would happen (or atleast that's the aim of DayZ as far as i noticed from reading stuff on the forums).

---

If you're shot in the chest IRL you're probably going to die pretty soon depending on the caliber. The makarov takes around 2 clips (Sometimes) to even kill someone with chest shots' date=' that might not be entirely realistic but it's as close as it gets. Don't mess with weapon damage, you should be able to revive your teammates with defibrillators. (And I know people are going say "That's so unrealistic!!11!", well I can fix my broken bones with morphine, bandage any wound completely. Oh I can also fix every damage on my body by getting a blood transfusion.)

[/quote']

Wouldn't mind defibs actually. It's a nice alternative.

[Littlenorwegians 3]

Man, this bellyaching.

This is what you'd call an attempt to simulate the zombie apocalypse.

It works so well because it sets its boundries so tight.

So tight they create tension. Which is the appeal.

There's also the chaos factor. There's no level designer assuring you that you will pick up health/ammo after an encounter.

And man, I don't want to hear it. I've died on ladders and roofs because of bugs. If a guy shoots me to death I can at least take comfort that if the tables were turned, the same would happen to him.

[TeaLeaf 5]

Nah, I like it the way it is. With your suggestion it'd be too easy to recover from near-wipes just by having one dude alive.

[DJKhaled 3]

This is a simulator. Meaning death is realistic

Headshots should kill someone, just like in real life

There's already tons of arcade zombie games. DayZ is popular because it's different, realistic, and harsh

The death system is also fine. It makes you value your in-game life more. Knowing that if you die you will lose hours of work and not just respawn with all your gear and location.

[Capital 5]

In your example' date=' the group died fast because you engaged an enemy group head on in a firefight. You're suppose to die fast from bullets, it's how it works in real life.

[/quote']

Sadly the zombie apocalypse is not real. This is a game, a tool for people to socialize. If you bring in realism arguments you can just as well get rid of all the zombies. DayZ: Office life simulator.

DayZ is a mod built on a military simulation engine. The WHOLE POINT is realism, ie: getting as close to believability as possible in a virtual engine. That doesn't mean there can't be zombies. Perhaps you've never played the game that DayZ is based on: ArmA 2. If not, you should, it is far from an office life simulator and has no zombies.

And the zombie apocalypse is not real...yet. So far this is the best training tool available. :cool:

OP: The randomness of the ArmA 2 engine affords a lot of scenarios where you can survive several shots, return fire and win the fight, patching yourself up afterwards.

My team and I ran head first into another group moving toward us through a forest. We engaged at about 50 meters. There were 3 of them and 4 of us. They engaged first, and one of them had an M240, which took out two of us almost instantly. Our rear guard/squad sniper didn't have eyes on them and took cover as rounds snapped past him. Luckily, I was on the flank and they hadn't seen me. I managed to take the machine-gunner out and his buddy with my M4 before the third guy saw me. We had a stand-off behind trees til I popped smoke to distract him, enveloped the other direction and killed him.

So we won, with two guys alive and all of them dead. It was the most adrenaline-pumping situation I'd been in since playing DayZ. It was amazing. If you take away instant or near-instant death kills the surprise and fear from the game is greatly diminished, making it far less compelling.

[amentes 0]

I can see where the OP is coming from, in that it sucks to be the only one left alive, when you've logged on to have some fun with your mates.

But I also think it should be clear to us all that being able to "revive" your mates would take a lot of the tension out of the game.

I think we'd see people "sacrificing" themselves against hordes of Zs, as they know their mates would simply get them back on their feet after the clustered Zs were mowed down.

In the current system, it's extremely important to cover ones teammates, and friendly fire is a serious hazard in some situations.

[Leo (DayZ) 1]

I understand all your arguments, and it does make me rethink what I suggested a bit. I still stand behind my suggestions tho.

I'm ok with well trained & well equipped players being able to kill fast, I just believe people should be able to be revived afterwards because if they die and respawn they run to their corpse anyway. especially if they have friendlies guarding it.

The one shot argument is more about situations like this:

you are just walking around when a random guy who spawned 30 mins ago happens to spot you and makes a one shot kill with a lee enfield/cz 550, ending your 10 hour life.

@Amentis

Your concerns are valid and I agree that there will be some "exploits" of the mechanic that will need fixing.

My first suggestion was simply tweaking the fainting mechanic that is currently in the game. Currently if you faint you are still able to receive damage. Damaging someone who's fainted enough will kill him.

Other than the sacrifice run into zombies, how will the reviving take tension out of the game? Won't it add tension instead? Your teammate has fainted, now its your job to rescue him! What will he say to you in case you failed to revive him, or when you were too scared to help him?

And if you do manage to revive him your team is ready for the next adventure right away! Ready to experience more tense moments.

[amentes 0]

That's exactly the point Leo. That should be possible.

No matter how many weapons you acquire, the most important skill is to not get spotted, or at least not before you've spotted whomever spots you.

That's what makes it such an even playing field.

Personally, I think it would be cool if a player couldn't loot his own corpse. That would easily be circumvented by his friend looting it and handing him the items, but it would at least make sure that any loner couldn't "cheat the system" when killed by Zs.

A bullet to the skull should be 100% lethal, but I wouldn't mind seeing a higher likelihood of getting "shot unconscious", if we can combine it with the ability to drag/move unconscious players.

We have this in the ACE mods, and I think it would be beyond cool to see people trying to actually lay down suppressive fire and attempt to drag their mate to a place where they can patch him up.

[Leo (DayZ) 1]

The spotting is just too impacting imo tho, especially because its so easy to spot other players because of the way the game renders players/the world.

About the revival stuff: Personally I don't really care so much about realism as long as the game is still acceptably realistic. like battlefield 3 or something. Because this is an arma 2 mod I'd imagine a lot of dayz players think differently, but if dayz would ever be released as a standalone game I believe the majority of the playerbase really wouldn't care all that much about realism.

Technology has its limitations. Perfect simulation can not be achieved. There is no point in making everything that can be realistic perfectly realistic then, because the way those 100% realistic mechanics work are altered by the mechanics that can't be 100% realistic (like visibility of a player in the world). You can better tweak all the numbers to your own will so the desired effect is achieved. Maybe that is 100% revival chance, maybe a headshot will still be instakill. Thats for the game designer to decide. Not realism.

[DJKhaled 3]

The spotting is just too impacting imo tho' date=' especially because its so easy to spot other players because of the way the game renders players/the world.

About the revival stuff: Personally I don't really care so much about realism as long as the game is still acceptably realistic. like battlefield 3 or something. Because this is an arma 2 mod I'd imagine a lot of dayz players think differently, but if dayz would ever be released as a standalone game I believe the majority of the playerbase really wouldn't care all that much about realism.

Technology has its limitations. Perfect simulation can not be achieved. There is no point in making everything that can be realistic perfectly realistic then, because the way those 100% realistic mechanics work are altered by the mechanics that can't be 100% realistic (like visibility of a player in the world). You can better tweak all the numbers to your own will so the desired effect is achieved. Maybe that is 100% revival chance, maybe a headshot will still be instakill. Thats for the game designer to decide. Not realism.

[/quote']

The point is that there are already plenty of zombie arcade games. This is the first actual simulator that is somewhat realistic.

[lube 0]

First off I'd like to thank Rocket and the other developers of DayZ for this awesome and unique mod. I am a mod developer myself and know how much work and dedication it takes to make something like DayZ a reality. Thank you!!!

I've been playing DayZ for a while now and I think I'm ready to provide some feedback. There are lots of small things that bother me but I won't be mentioning any of that. The mod is still in alpha and its better to focus on the large mechanics of the game first.

The subject I chose to talk about is death in DayZ. Death from PvP in praticular.

DayZ is a survival game. People can walk around for hours moving to new locations and gathering better gear.

But you can be killed by a single bullet of another player' date=' or if you are unlucky a zombie can break your bone or even faint you at pretty high levels of blood. The point is your adventure can end before you know it. The way death works in DayZ is one of the biggest reasons why its such a great experience to play. But I am of the opinion that death comes a little too fast. It would be nice if players could develop ways of protecting themselves from death and if some weapons are nerfed.

You could have had the most epic gear in the world and it wouldn't save you. there could be 5 of your buddies around your corpse and there won't be anything they can do. The only thing you can do is respawn at a random position and hope it's close to your corpse. Running back to your corpse and continuing your previous life might not be intended by design, but what about the buddies you were hanging out with before? Are you supposed to find new friends? Join a new ventrilo server? Thats just not going to happen. You can better embrace the way people want to play the game and allow it to work in a more realistic way.

Lets use an example that I experienced myself. Me and two of my buddies run into a group of enemy survivors. A gunfight starts. Once the fight is over all enemies are dead but also me and one of my buddies is dead. There is only one survivor. 83% of the players involved in that fight have lost the game. They are dead and lost all their gear. That doesn't make sense. Me and my buddies have won the fight. Not only have most of the "winnners" lost their gear, the winners team is also split up now because of the respawns. Its going to take a long time until everyone finds eachother again to continue to have fun.

Five dead corpses and only one guy to loot it also creates another very annoying situation. The five players who died respawned at the beach and the first thing they are going to do is run towards those corpses to loot them. It creates a very dumb battle which lasts forever, while one team originally already won.

I believe these "problems" can be fixed relatively easy but still be done well. These are my suggestions:

1. Buff the "bleed out" timer mechanic.

Currently there is a "bleed out" mechanic in place which sometimes faints a player when he gets really close to death. He won't be able to do anything during that time and requires a friend to heal him in order to stay alive. This is a really nice mechanic. It draws people together because if you want to live, you need a teammate to revive you in case you faint. And when you are trying to play the game with friends its easy to stay together. You can revive each other after all. No need to respawn at the beach and run around for an hour. Just keep playing all the time.

But a player hardly ever enters this bleed out mode atm. They just die right away. And when they do enter it they bleed out really fast. A player should enter this bleed out mode 100% of the time. Instead of dieing he faints and starts bleeding out. It should also take longer to bleed out. I'm thinking around 3 minutes.

This mechanic is nice, but too small at the moment to make a difference. If these changes go in players who team up will always stay together. Live together & die together. For many people a game is about having fun with your friends. ...or is it? Imagine this: two groups of people get into a gunfight with each other. One guy goes down in the open and goes into bleed out mode. His buddies are all behind cover. Now what decision will they make? Risk their own life to save him? Or will they leave him to die?

2. No one shot/uber fast kills.

Even in FPS games its annoying to get one shot killed. You had no chance to react and you have no idea what actually happened. you just died. If you wouldn't get one shotted in DayZ there are at least some options you have if you have been shot: Run away, run for cover or try to fight back. More control over what happens with your character is more fun.

But the more important reason there shouldn't be one shot kills is because people simply shouldn't die so fast in a game like this. you spend hours on your one life, finding better gear and moving to new locations. It is just too unforgiving to die so fast. Not much words of argumentation, but thats all there is to it really.

Some weapons that I noticed can one shot and could use a damage nerf(not complete list by any means): Lee enfield, CZ 550.

I named these two weapons because they are so easy to acquire. If a player manages to get a M24 sniper he could expect it to pack a punch. The M24 and other weapons are also much more rare so it doesn't impact the game that much. Its still fine if a player 1 shots someone via a headshot I guess, as long as he can still be revived with the bleed out mechanic.

With these changes the "running from respawn to my corpse for loot" problem shouldn't occur that much anymore too. Altho I do believe its still pretty dumb. Dead is dead. Just implement something which stops a player from getting the loot from his dead body back, or at least if he is alone. I think with these changes doing that is justified.

Thats my feedback. I hoped I explained my reasons for these suggestions well enough, and hopefully you can do something with it!

Regards,

Leo

[/quote']

i think it could be a little annoying, a rifle is expected to be a one shot kill no matter how common, they are powerful weapons and reducing damage would be unneeded, dont nerf the guns just change your play style, its more fun that way because you have to be constantly aware of your own back or your position relative to possible sniper positions and still deal with any walkers.

the bleed out mechanic atm is in its own right filling that role already, although i do agree that if possible some circumstances should result in less blood loss, ive lost over 3000 blood before now trying to fiddle with the gear, bandage system from a zombie slash.

and the broken bones and faint mechanics, i like the idea that its a balance thing,

a zombie is dead so has no limiters on how much it can use its body since the survival instincts are almost not existent, however i have been instant knocked out and eaten alive while unconscious by 2 zeds before now, which i admit was unexpected at the time but helps add the the fun of survival as its another thing your thinking about.

and again the running back to your body for loot is down to player choice, there is no reason someone would constantly run back to their body if they have no reason to go there, its all about what its worth to you, i wouldn't call it game breaking to say you could recover your stuff, but to stop people from doing it if they do come across their body would probably come under that.

and for the end of this long post, referencing the everlasting battle part,

this comes down to worth, if you value your weapon so much you dont want to die with it, then your bound to be upset when you inevitably do lose it, its just part of the game that makes surviving that much more tense.

more bodies than you can loot?

if your a lone survivor with more bodies than you could possibly loot, stock up on what you can carry and move on.

the "winners" are those left standing at the end, even if it may be annoying to the losers or the dead, team or not.

just my opinion on your suggestions, although i mostly disagree, your ideas could be partly implemented in alternative ways as the mod develops, but currently I think the difficulty of this game and the unfairness add up to make the "fun" moments much more rewarding, so if anything id want it more unfair and difficult while remaining realistic and leaving room for adaptation for better survival chances.