DayZ: The state of death, and the Great Storage debate

[The Sad Panda 113]

DayZ: The state of death, and the great storage debate

Ladies, gentlemen, and spaghetti monsters of all ages – welcome to the thread. Today I would like to address a few serious issues (and by extension, some of the issues they themselves cause) that exist in the realm of Chernarus, DayZ. Just to put everyone’s mind at ease, this won’t be a thread dedicated to the removal of perma-death, or allowing 135,167,876,345 items to be stored in a single tent or ural. Jokes aside though - death and storage, both being very integral yet opposite gameplay mechanics, need some revising for the overall health of the game. Fair warning, I will be going into detail with most of my reasoning’s, so this post will be very TL:DR, so if you’re not looking for a serious thread on game mechanics, I’d advice finding a different thread. For reference, MS word counts over 3,000 words to give you an idea of length

I’d also like to point out, that I’m obviously biased on the issue, there’d be no point in me denying it at this point seeing as how I’ve posted my opinion on this in various discussions. However, I will be doing my best to step back away from my personal feelings on the issue, and analyze them from multiple angles, and as fairly as possible. With that being said, I apologize if I sway too far in either direction of the argument in my post here. Seeing as how this is a forum, you are all more than welcome to post criticisms of my ideas – you may even point out something that I’ve completely missed that adds a whole new dynamic to the discussion. However, just know that no matter what is said, no-one will convince me that having a REAL permadeath mechanic in the game, as well as external storage mechanics, is a bad idea. Shall we begin?

Can I get an executive summary please? tl:dr;

> Perma-Death in the game, as it is right now, isn't actually permanent

> While storage mechanics in the game can cause problems, the solution is not to create shallow gameplay by removing it, instead we should experiment with deeper gameplay mechanics that uses it in a fair way

A not-so-permanent death

Every day it seems there’s a new argument on certain aspects of death in DayZ, whether it be because players find it offensive that respawning players can re-gear at external storage, or by a quick run through Cherno / Elektro, or because the game’s “Perma-death” mechanic isn’t punishing in the least. I’ve given it some thought the last couple of days, and it’s occurred to me that DayZ doesn’t actually HAVE a perma-death mechanic. Think I’m wrong? Alright, that’s fine, but first I’d like you to do an experiment for me.

1. First off, I need you to find a tent and set it up. The location doesn’t matter.

2. Place all of your gear except a flashlight, bandage, and painkillers inside the tent. This includes any improved backpack

3. Run the tent over with a vehicle

4. Drive the vehicle into the ocean and get out

5. Stand on the coast and open your inventory

Guess what, you just died. Huh? That can’t be – my character is still here. Nope, you just spawned on the beach my friend. Don’t believe me? Take another look at your inventory, you only have what’s given to new spawns. You don’t have any special skills or abilities; you’ve just a flashlight, some meds, and the clothes on your back. For all intents and purposes, you’ve died (except perhaps ghillie / camo you couldn’t take off, I won’t judge you for not placing it in the tent).

Are you starting to see my point here? You can’t have a legitimate perma-death mechanic in a game without character progression. No matter how many times you catch a bullet in the skull, your character just respawns on the coast, and regardless of tent stockpiles or not, is only maybe 30 minutes – 1 hour away from being re-armed. “But Panda, my old character is face down in Starry’s tents! This is a completely new one!” Sorry to break it to you, but that’s not the case. You are in fact, controlling the exact same avatar that not 2 minutes ago had a bullet separate his brain from the rest of his body via an anti-material sniper round. If you want to prove me wrong, please take a screen shot of your old character’s skill sheet and post it here. Wait; there are no skill sheets in DayZ? Exactly

It’s almost an insult to other games that feature “Perma-death” mechanics that we call death in DayZ permanent. No matter how many tears you shed about that bandit being able to grab another AKM from his tent and continue on his merry way after you put him down, or how much you wish people couldn’t stockpile medical supplies so you have more sniping targets in Cherno, you will never change the fact that in its current state, perma-death in DayZ simply isn’t possible. Now hold your horses there, I can already see you ignoring the rest of my post and heading straight for the quote / reply button. Calm down, I’ll explain. I’m not in any way shape or form against a harsh and punishing death mechanic. That’s right, read it again just to make sure you got it. I’m just stating the facts here guys, we can’t have a legitimate perma-death system in the game without some form of non-gear based character development. Most of what I see on the forums here is people screaming for the destruction of all things storage based – tents and vehicle inventories. I’ve come to offer an alternative that doesn’t completely destroy entire playstyles, while still (at least in my opinion) staying true to the authentic zombie survival gameplay that DayZ offers.

Imagine if you will for a moment, a DayZ where all men and women are NOT created equal. Hang on, don’t form a protest rally and march on my doorstep just yet. Think about this for a second, if the zombie apocalypse (or infect outbreak, or whatever) happened right now, how many of you would be able to perform a blood transfusion in the field? I sure couldn’t, but perhaps a few of you could. Not everyone would be able to jump into the seat of a helicopter and pilot it either – are you starting to catch on here? Our characters lack the ability to learn in DayZ, mainly because they don’t actually need to learn anything. Somehow, some way, all these survivors managed to end up on the coast of Chernarus, possessing a good deal of knowledge on how to not only provide advanced forms of first-aid, but operate many different vehicles, gut and cook animals, and possess outstanding proficiency with every firearm they acquire. Does that seem right to anyone?

There’s an opportunity here to not only add depth to the game, but also to give players a reason to somewhat abandon the KoS mentality that’s rampant in the game, as well as add actual meaning to death in the game. That sound interesting to anyone? I won’t bother listing off every single possibility that I can see this opening up, mainly because I don’t want to spend 4 more hours listing and elaborating on every one of them. I will though list a couple for example. What if morphine no longer cured broken legs, what if it only dumbed the pain so you could walk. What if, in order to run, you would have to splint your own leg – even then you’d go slower and with a limp. To mend your broken leg, you’d need to find a player that’s learned a good deal about medicine. Think about that for a minute, if every survivor on the other end of a sniper scope potentially had some special skills that could be used to further the snipers own goals, whether they be medical skills to apply a blood bag, or construction skills to set-up a better and more defensible nest (even if it’s just a decoy in the middle of a field), would that sniper continue pulling that trigger indiscriminately? Sure, some probably will, but I’d be willing to bet a good deal of them would at least try to see what the person has to offer.

Skills could even go so far as affecting weapons, in it would require less parts to fix a broken weapon with the proper skills, and could serve to negate stockpiled weapons in a way, but more on that in the next section. Anyway, with a skill system in mind, take a moment to reflect on what it would add to the depth of the game. Post your ideas, criticize it, tell me I’m crazy – post your thoughts and add to the discussion,

“Ohh emm gee, I saw that weapon on the ground and I TOTALLY pitched a tent”

This brings me to the second point of my thread, to address external storage and what it brings to the table / detracts from the experience. Like I mentioned in the header of the thread, no-one will ever convince me that external storage has to be removed for the health of the game. Storage adds to the game in that it’s adding more options. No longer must your character magically be able to carry around three weapons, ammo, food, medical supplies, car parts, or other misc items that exist in DayZ. I can see the replies now, “HaHa! So there’s your true colors you #$%^ing carebear, GTFO!”. Yep, you caught me, you’d better believe that I want to hoard every single piece of loot that I can possibly carry. In fact, if this were real life, I’d probably be picking up things that I don’t even have a use for at the moment, just on the off chance that I’d be able to use them later. If I have the capability to keep my friends and family out of danger by bringing back more supplies than are needed, I’d do it 10 out of 10 times.

I’m not delusional though, this is far from real life, and external storage DOES pose quite a few problems. First and foremost, it diminishes the power of “perma-death” mechanics, there’s no debate on that, it’s a fact. I’ve seen posts on the forums calling for a complete removal of tents and vehicle inventories just to make sure that no-one is able to hoard gear and re-gear immediately upon death. That’s not even a completely invalid way to look at things, although It is a little too destructive for my taste. Like I’ve stated in other threads, the complete and total removal of external storage would also destroy various play-styles. How will all the merchants and traders store their gear if external storage is removed? How will groups of players consolidate their gear to keep it readily accessible if a few members aren’t online?

STOP IT! I can already see you in the reply box typing “Hurr Durr poor poor babies can’t escape death anymore QQQQQQQQ”. Now, because I’ve already seen you typing that message out, I want you to explain to me, in plain English, why it’s OK to destroy someone else’s playstyle, but not your own. What if tomorrow morning, Rocket were to come onto the forums and tell everyone that Banditry were at and end – you can no longer kill other players without a reason. That’s not very fair is it, it’s certainly isn’t good for the game. What if we removed medical supplies from the game, after all their entire purpose is stave off death, and everyone is so gun-ho to make the game more difficult right? Guess all the medics that play the game now are just SOL, but it’s ok because it’s going to help bandage the flawed death mechanic that we currently have, right? The way to increase difficulty in the game isn’t by making the game extremely shallow, rather it needs to be made deeper.

Hoarding, from an authentic survival simulation standpoint, is not wrong in the least, but from a gameplay standpoint though it can pose some problems. As far as role-playing is concerned, it’s not a huge stretch of the imagination that players in the group who die and respawn, are just a new person joining the group to replace the loss of the fallen member. Naturally, groups want their members to be as well-equipped as possible, so obviously they will use whatever they have at their disposal. The problem comes with the fact that it leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth of other players that a fresh spawn is able to go from square one, to square ten in a matter of minutes because of weapons and supply caches that groups maintain.

Now here’s the thing, we can’t allow supply caches to bypass an entire part of the core gameplay experience, but we also can’t punish players for simply being human – stockpiling supplies is just something that we do. Don’t believe me? Go to your refrigerator; is there enough food in there to last more than one day? What about your garage? Surely you don’t use all those tools, bottles of oil, grease, golf clubs, car parts, lawn chairs, etc. every day of the week, correct? No, but we keep these things around because we may need them in the future.

A lot of people seem to look at tents like they’re just being used as a 1-up, a rainy day provision if you will. But you know what, that’s not how everyone else sees them. Personally, I want to use the things in my tent to prolong my current life, not reset my character in case something bad happens. Now I’ve been rambling for a while, so I’ll get to my point here: Why does “storage” need to be a blanket term for “extra life”?

Obviously the Arma II DayZ mod has its limitations, which is why the inventory system we’re using now is somewhat of a mess. But, looking towards the future, why can’t we look into different forms of storage? Tents don’t need to be able to store everything in the game. Let’s look at a system like this

Tents – still found in supermarkets and residential areas |able to store “Community” type items, such as Food, Water, Medical Supplies, and ammunition. That’s right, no gun storage in this one, but the items inside don’t disappear when any specific character is killed, they must either be packed up, run over by a vehicle, or destroyed with an axe in order to remove them. Now I’ve seen the arguments that state that tent proliferation will continue until a point is reached where the rate of tent construction is equal to the rate they’re being destroyed. However, if we restrict the things that can actually be stored inside them, and therefore limiting their actual usefulness, who knows if that theoretical point will even need to exist. Why can’t we experiment with it, is that not what we’re here to do?

Gun Lockers – New item, must be constructed with scrap metal by a player skilled in construction (This is assuming that some form of character progression is added, remember that perma-death and external storage go hand-in-hand, and must be treated as such). This item is deployable, just like tents (or a place-able item inside the underground bases that Rocket keeps talking about), and would be the only form of storage that’s able to hold guns, military equipment (NVGs, rangefinders, etc.) and camo clothing (That’s right guys, not even vehicles could hold guns. I’m willing to talk compromises if you will). This would, in effect, make gun storage much more challenging since it would require a skilled craftsman to create. It also has the added benefit that gun stockpiles will be lost if only a single character was collecting them. Now you might be thinking, “But Panda, why would anyone not train up their craftsmanship to just make these, effectively making them common?” That’s a good point, but in effect they’d be making a tradeoff. Do I spend all my time trying to make a gun cabinet (and thus greatly increase the chance of death), or do I pick up some other skills first (like medicine, cooking, etc.) to make sure I can survive?

Now I can also see a few people up in arms here (no pun intended) that I’m proposing a dedicated gun storage, which would in effect continue providing the extra life problem that we’re already having. Bear with me here. Assuming that in the stand-alone version of the game we’re able to attribute ownership of specific items to players, any items owning to a player who is killed, will be removed…in a sense. Instead of them vanishing into thin air, they will be converted (up to a cap of course) into spare gun parts that can be used to…wait for it…wait for it…

Maintaining and repairing existing firearms, as well as helping characters increase their mastery of gun maintenance. That’s right, I’m proposing that guns and equipment degrade and break over time. That is, however, a subject for another time and another thread. But just let that linger in your mind for a while.

Now I do realize that I’m contradicting myself here a bit. Earlier I mentioned how the removal of storage would hurt different groups, almost to the point of making the playstyle invalid. This change will essentially still do the same thing to one group – the traders. There’s never a perfect solution to problems like this, and it’s still a bit unfair to the traders who risk their lives every time they go and make a trade. Death during a trade mission would also mean that the stored guns back at their camp would be gone. The way to avoid this would be to expand the trading operation, and have different people in charge of different groups of guns. That’s really the best I can come up with. We’re still in Alpha of the Arma II mod, and when the standalone launches it’ll be in alpha too. Seems like as good a time as any to test and see if this actually works, we are, after all – experimenting. If it doesn’t work well enough, we go back to the drawing board.

Industrial crate – constructed with wood by a craftsman (less skill required than for gun locker), for the purpose of holding excess industrial goods, such as car parts, scrap metal, and jerry cans. This would also be another form of storage that would not lose items on a specific character’s death. Fairly straight forward

Go west, young man

In closing, I’d like to remind everyone that the world of Chernarus is a sandbox, in which we get to explore, experiment, succeed, and on occasion – fail. I’ve came here today to provide constructive alternatives to the destructive ones that I see here on a daily basis. Maybe my ideas are right, maybe they’re completely wrong. The only way to find out is to do some experimentation.

Like I said way back at the beginning, this is a thread for discussion on the matter. No matter what your opinions on the matter are, I promise that I’ll at least read them with an open mind.

If you enjoyed the thread - tell your friends about it and have them share their opinions here as well. Hated the thread? Go get your friends and have them come argue against my points with you. It’s your turn, tell the world what you think about this important issue.

Edited August 14, 2012 by The Sad Panda

[Noose (DayZ) 23]

Very much appreciate the tl;dr warning.

tl;dr

[Hero Star 3]

You should be a sad panda, because no one is going to read that long ass post. Very sad indeed.

Seriously, its a fucking video game. Who has that much time or that much to say about it?

[jackcrow 129]

Tents wouldnt be nearly as big of a problem if it didn't require a player to save the tent. But right now all you have to do is take out your weapon and ammo, do not save, and youll have it all back on the next reset potentially giving you unlimited supply of your choice weapon and ammo.

If someone has a spare CCO SD and they take it after a death and get killed again before finding another they no longer have a quick gear-up option.

I dont think you would see nearly the whinning that you do not if it were like that.

On the same side, it also adds some depth to the game. For instance we were out scouting and destroying Bandit/duper tents on our server yesterday. We'd find huge camp sites where we would have to empty the tents, save them, and destroy the items save some of the ammo and food. Sorta like policing our server, and to be perfectly honest it was fun.

[The Sad Panda 113]

You should be a sad panda, because no one is going to read that long ass post. Very sad indeed.

Seriously, its a fucking video game. Who has that much time or that much to say about it?

That post was written over the course of several days in my spare time. Why? Because I care, and a dose of intelligent discussion to counteract the sea of whine posts in the forums isn't a bad thing. I obviously knew it would only attract a certain group of people, that's why I started of by saying it was in the first place.

This obviously isn't your type of thread, go find one that's more to your liking

[Cartz 21]

Sad Panda, the only problem is, this isn't intelligent discussion.

Its 2 or 3 interesting ideas couched inside a 3000 word rambling (your words, not mine) post.

In the future, if you want to have an intelligent correspondence with anyone about anything and you find yourself actually writing the words 'I am rambling' then go back and fucking edit.

Don't waste everyones time with 3000 words when 300 would have done the job. This isn't 12th grade english class.

Edited August 13, 2012 by Cartz

[Sabboth 14]

Read the whole thing, rational discussion with logic and obvious thought put into it. Not hostile in anyway, and very suggesting as opposed to demanding.

I understand what you're saying about death not being permanent, I mean, my little 2 man group of myself and my girlfriend already feel completely lax about dying due to the fact that we have a base full of food and gear tucked away in the woods. Our fear of death stems only from knowing that whatever we have on us at the time of death is lost, but not the items that we have stockpiled. Your character progression reminds me of the stuff written about in an interview with the guy behind WarZ and if it manages to be executed correctly, I'd honestly think it could work. It would return the fear of death because you'd have lost the knowledge you actively use to survive, taking you out of your methods and habits and making it that much more dangerous once you respawn. KOS though, once a bandit has a team that fills all the needed roles there's no reason for them not to KOS anymore.

Though with storage being the main culprit, I think it's more of the sense of "realism" the community is latched onto. We can do our best to shove more realistic features into the game, but your proposed methods of storage management seems to take away from that. I should be able to put guns and medicine in my car, I can go outside and do that right now. It's the persistence of the player behind the screen and that little ball of mush inside their noggin. You can rationalize it all you want with RP scenarios and "new people joining the group" just to get geared up once they make it back to the base, but things like skype and teamspeak effectively adds telepathy to everyone and everyone has persistent memory that remembers where their stash is after death. The best way in my opinion to deal with this without mucking up all the inventory functionality (though I do agree that a full car assembly in a camping tent with ten guns on top is a bit much) is to have temp/perm bans from the server. Even if just for an hour, that's an hour that the survivor of a gun fight has with their mind at ease knowing that they have an hour PLUS the time it takes for the guy to get to his stash once he does respawn before he has to watch his back again, if he even is still at the same place for him to find him at in the first place.

For the most part, I like the effort put into this suggestion and the ideas are good too. Maybe not how I would do it though.

Edited August 13, 2012 by Sabboth

[ezay75 57]

I stoped reading because OP takes readers for idiots.

If you want to make 3k words long posts, don't make them boring+judging.

[Mastiff (DayZ) 42]

I read it all and enjoyed it.

Whilst the points you raised were perfectly reasonable and in my eyes a good summary with regards to 'perma death' and hoarding i dont think the solutions you presented were ideal.

I see what you mean though, i got killed by a hacker lost my L85 and Mk48 plus nvg range and a full tool belt yet i spawned near the area so i knew where to go and within 10 minutes a clan member had killed the two hackers and thus i was fully equipped again now with an SVD. There were no real consequences to my death, otherwise i would of ran to our camp.

[puppetworx 474]

Can I get an executive summary please? tl:dr;

[The Sad Panda 113]

I stoped reading because OP takes readers for idiots.

If you want to make 3k words long posts, don't make them boring+judging.

If I thought any of the questions or ideas in the thread were boring, I would have cut them from the finished draft. As for treating readers like idiots, I guess you have a valid point, although that's far from what I had intended. I tried to provide as much context as possible, for anyone who doesn't speak English as a first language (Maybe that's not the right way to go about it at all, I'm not an expert. The intent was pure though), while also acknowledging points in the text where I felt I could be losing the reader to a knee-jerk anger posting about a piece of content.

I'm sorry I couldn't provide content for discussion in a style of your liking, perhaps you'd like to give it a whirl?

[The Sad Panda 113]

Can I get an executive summary please? tl:dr;

Added two line TL:DR summary, just to give readers a chance to see the subjects of the text to decide if it's worth the read.

[insitv 305]

You should be a sad panda, because no one is going to read that long ass post. Very sad indeed.

Seriously, its a fucking video game. Who has that much time or that much to say about it?

Seriously, it's a fucking forum post. Who has that much time to bitch about it?

@OP:

I just signed up here to reply to your post. Your ideas a very interesting (not saying they are either good or bad) but like some people already said, you could have saved some of your 3k words and made it shorter. All trolls would stay away (probably) and wouldn't infect this post with cancer (first reply).

On to your ideas:

1) Tent/permanent death issue

A topic i would love to discuss on. Currently it's exactly like you say: you die, you run to your camp (be it tents or vehicles), gear up, join your group and it's all ok again. That takes like 10-30min depending on where your camp is located. When i am "raiding" NWAF/Stary for example, i just run in to check for zombies and go "rambo". If i die, well, let's gear up again. If i kill someone, haha that's some nice laughs me and my buddies will share.

How to prevent that status the game is in right now? Tents/Vehicles NEED to be fixed or disabled until they are. On almost every server that is running longer than a week you got multiple tent sites with every item possible. You find them, loot them, even destroy them. After the next restart they are back with all the items. It's bugged like hell.

My team and me have saved dozens of coordinates on dozens of servers with camps so we can gear up fast again. Sometimes we don't even use them because it destroys the game. I strongly believe, if tent duping wasn't possible, either by fixing the bugs or disabling the tents altogether, people would be more caring for their characters. Of course you can hoard weapons and items like a madman, but that will take time or skill in killing people for their gear. If that is the case i don't mind if people have an easy time after dieing.

tl;dr: Most people gear up at duped tents or tents that were filled up by other people. Fix/disable tents and the duping which is caused by them and that should solve a few "problems".

2) Skills/Abilities

The way you propose it, or let me say, you have in mind: No, please no!

My idea would be that every man and woman could do blood transfusions, give morphine, repair vehicles etc. It stays the same. Why?

Learning all this new stuff would (in my opinion) alienate quite a few people who are new to the game or new to the genre. I mean, first and foremost, DayZ is a shooter. Maybe a very realistic one (more so than other shooters i've experienced) and a very difficult one at first. But it still is a shooter. I wouldn't want to mix in RP mechanics (just yet).

Where i could see a compromise: The more often you give someone a blood transfusion, the better you get at it. Let's say if you start a new character, you will restore 6000 blood per transfusion. You can maximize your output by doing it very often and reach the highest level of 12.000 blood per transfusion we have right now. Same with other components that are currently in the game. A very good mechanic, who's repaired many vehicles, will need less time and resources to repair a vehicle. The list goes on but the idea is the same.

tl;dr: Give everyone the same abilities but let them improve. The more often you do something, the better you get at it and the less resources you'll require in the future.

3) More storage mechanisms

I love your idea but i think you need to wait for the stand-alone on this one. Discussing/sharing ideas about it is interesting but could be become obsolete the moment the game is released and Rocket already implemented them (we can dream).

Well, these are my thoughts on the subject(s) and grammar police please be nice. English isn't my native language!

inb4 tl;dr

[Rock (DayZ) 95]

Very long, but interesting to read post. I agree wholeheartedly about your points on the so-called "perma death" that DayZ claims to have. The only true differences between lives are the cosmetics of the character that you now have on the coast, with the off-site storage providing them with everything they need again like they called in a military aridrop. Even I, as a player who DOESN'T use any form of offsite storage whatsoever, can run into one of the larger towns and re-gear in the span of an hour. Even when I die, or my gear gets glitched away, I don't care because of how easy it is to get myself ready again. Yes, I don't have the "top of the line" equipment from military bases, but I always get my basic rifle, food, water, map, and other tools very quickly. Just two days ago the serer claimedI was killed (Death message as soon as I logged in, but was teleported to the debug plains), took away all my gear, my map, hunting knife, hatchet, alice pack, winchester, revolver, quite literally EVERYTHING I had. I was essentially dead, just with my character's hundred-odd zombie kills and four days survived, and around the 4k blood I had last time I logged in, where as a new spawn would have had 12k. Even a new spawn had more gear than I did. Appeared in Otmel, said "fuck it", and was riding high in elektro in the next hour with gear that equated to or surpassed everything I had lost.

Introduction of skill sets would really make the whole perma-death hit closer to home, making us truly care if our current character lives or dies in a firefight. It makes you care about others in your group as well, if they have skills you don't. Having other characters, not your own, that you care about can truly make a realistic group experience. What if the one person who can perform blood transfusions dies in a firefight? What happens when the two characters good at wilderness survival (eg, hunting animals, making fires, cooking meat for the group) are swarmed by deadheads when they went too close to a town? The group would change drastically without a medic to patch up wounds, or without hunters to bring in food. Truck breaks down outside of Vybor, but your mechanic gets killed in the factory looking for replacement parts? Suddenly you have no car, as the doctor, or the sharpshooter wouldn't be able to reassemble the engine block, or patch up the leaky fuel tank. Why would anyone care if the mechanic died if they could all do the exact same things right after spawning? While drastically changing he group's style of play with the death of one character can be a real turn-off to others, I would personally welcome actually having to watch my partner's back not because I like him, but because I need him.

Sorry for the long post, just my thoughts on the "skill sets" mechanic you suggested.

[syncmaster (DayZ) 63]

I don't really think people want tents removed from DayZ forever, just the mod in its current state. At least I have never read that argument. Just that they need to be fixed or removed until they are fixed, even if its standalone.

I am the first one who will argue that the current idea of tents is broken, and that maybe they should be removed for now, but I still love the idea of them. I would hate to see a final product where they pretty much say, "sorry they don't work so we removed them". I just hope we can have a civil discussion on the matter and find an idea that works, and then just hope the Devs listen and can pull it off. I mean, if we as a community can not figure out a solution, then their must not be one. I find that hard to believe.

[bazbake 456]

I read it all, The Sad Panda. Let me point out something you said first...

Every day it seems there’s a new argument on certain aspects of death in DayZ, whether it be because players find it offensive that respawning players can re-gear at external storage, or by a quick run through Cherno / Elektro, or because the game’s “Perma-death” mechanic isn’t punishing in the least. I’ve given it some thought the last couple of days, and it’s occurred to me that DayZ doesn’t actually HAVE a perma-death mechanic. Think I’m wrong? Alright, that’s fine, but first I’d like you to do an experiment for me.

1. First off, I need you to find a tent and set it up. The location doesn’t matter.

2. Place all of your gear except a flashlight, bandage, and painkillers inside the tent. This includes any improved backpack

3. Run the tent over with a vehicle

4. Drive the vehicle into the ocean and get out

5. Stand on the coast and open your inventory

Guess what, you just died. Huh? That can’t be – my character is still here. Nope, you just spawned on the beach my friend. Don’t believe me? Take another look at your inventory, you only have what’s given to new spawns. You don’t have any special skills or abilities; you’ve just a flashlight, some meds, and the clothes on your back. For all intents and purposes, you’ve died (except perhaps ghillie / camo you couldn’t take off, I won’t judge you for not placing it in the tent).

So you know exactly how death in this game works. What progress in this game is. And what counts as permadeath.

You can’t have a legitimate perma-death mechanic in a game without character progression.

...

But you just...

I mean...

Oh, God, it's one of those posts...

No matter how many times you catch a bullet in the skull, your character just respawns on the coast, and regardless of tent stockpiles or not, is only maybe 30 minutes – 1 hour away from being re-armed.

So it takes 30-60 minutes to grab an AS50, a ghillie suit, three water bottles, a hunting knife, a box of matches, a military flashlight...are you even going to try to take this seriously?

That’s right, read it again just to make sure you got it. I’m just stating the facts here guys, we can’t have a legitimate perma-death system in the game without some form of non-gear based character development.

...But you already...like, the first thing you said...

...

*sigh*

This brings me to the second point of my thread, to address external storage and what it brings to the table / detracts from the experience.

But...you led with this. Why didn't you just keep talking about this instead of shoving a completely unrelated game design suggestion into the middle of your point?

First and foremost, it diminishes the power of “perma-death” mechanics, there’s no debate on that, it’s a fact.

So why did you spend five paragraphs telling us that this isn't true? I mean, you didn't defend your contradictory point at all, but it would have helped us if you just hadn't written it in the first place and just stuck to the original quote above and then a conclusion: "External storage diminishes the power of the game's "perma-death" mechanics." I mean...why would you even stray from that point?

Yep, you caught me, you’d better believe that I want to hoard every single piece of loot that I can possibly carry. In fact, if this were real life, I’d probably be picking up things that I don’t even have a use for at the moment, just on the off chance that I’d be able to use them later. If I have the capability to keep my friends and family out of danger by bringing back more supplies than are needed, I’d do it 10 out of 10 times.

Oh. So you realize your side of the argument is incredibly weak, so you kept accidentally giving ground to the other side of the argument to the point that you forgot what you were arguing about.

STOP IT! I can already see you in the reply box typing “Hurr Durr poor poor babies can’t escape death anymore QQQQQQQQ”. Now, because I’ve already seen you typing that message out, I want you to explain to me, in plain English, why it’s OK to destroy someone else’s playstyle, but not your own. What if tomorrow morning, Rocket were to come onto the forums and tell everyone that Banditry were at and end – you can no longer kill other players without a reason. That’s not very fair is it, it’s certainly isn’t good for the game.

If you can't see the difference between limiting storage capacity and ending PvP, I got nothin' for ya.

Playstyle (n.): def. "shit I like to do."

Got it. You know, you could have trimmed this down to three paragraphs and then moved all of the other game design suggestions to a completely different post because no one who showed up here to debate tents and permadeath was expecting to see your ideas on how to make cool new tents out of scrap metal and the introduction of Skyrim-style RP mechanics.

--P.S. If this post sounds slightly condescending, it's nowhere near as condescending as that original post was. I mean, good Lord.

Edited August 13, 2012 by BazBake

[insitv 305]

I don't really think people want tents removed from DayZ forever, just the mod in its current state. At least I have never read that argument. Just that they need to be fixed or removed until they are fixed, even if its standalone.

I am the first one who will argue that the current idea of tents is broken, and that maybe they should be removed for now, but I still love the idea of them. I would hate to see a final product where they pretty much say, "sorry they don't work so we removed them". I just hope we can have a civil discussion on the matter and find an idea that works, and then just hope the Devs listen and can pull it off. I mean, if we as a community can not figure out a solution, then their must not be one. I find that hard to believe.

As much as i've read on these forums, there are ideas for tents and their behaviour that i would rate as possible solutions. I think the problem right now is that Rocket has more important matters to think about than the storing system. I think he and obviously everyone else knows they are broken but there isn't the possibility to fix them instantly.

I would rather disable them and see them come back in a stable state.

Just search the forum for possible solutions and let me say there are some really good ones in my opinion (like one tent per player or automatic despawn times you can't circumvent, so the need of constant moving of your camp).

[puppetworx 474]

I agree with you about character progression. I noticed that the times I get killed that annoy me the most aren't when I have tooled up quickly and then been shot - those lives often feel empty and boring because they didn't pose enough of a challenge - the times where my death annoys me most is when I have overcome great odds to survive until the point of death. If I can run around town and pickup everything I need to survive in 30 mins or shoot a Lee Enfield into someone 5 minutes after spawning and loot everything needed for survival from their corpse it feels almost like like I cheated, like I bypassed all the challenge in the game, and it's a hollow life. As someone once said 'the best things in life aren't free'.

I'm not fully with you about storage but on character progression I am. I'd like to see chance removed from the game and 'skill development' introduced as an experiment, e.g. lighting fires, cooking, healing, running stamina, steadiness of aim(this one will be very controversial) are all possible skills that the player can develop, amongst many more. The result of character progression is that players will have to work harder, use more caution and will become more attached to their characters lives.

Another game-play mechanic which I'd like to see experimented with would be inventory damage. When a player is shot in center-mass or hit by a zombie items in their inventory become damaged and unusable (including backpacks and weapons, as an example say 5-10% of items will get damaged upon being shot or hit by a zombie). Amongst other things losing items by chance (when in a position of increased risk: attacked by zombies/other players) would provide greater challenge to survival and add greater realism.

[insitv 305]

Another game-play mechanic which I'd like to see experimented with would be inventory damage. When a player is shot in center-mass or hit by a zombie items in their inventory become damaged and unusable (including backpacks and weapons, as an example say 5-10% of items will get damaged upon being shot or hit by a zombie). Amongst other things losing items by chance (when in a position of increased risk: attacked by zombies/other players) would provide greater challenge to survival and add greater realism.

Most of the time (in my experience) when you are shot at you almost always end up dead (be it a 1-shot from a sniper or a few shots from a AR that make you unconcious which allows for follow-up shots). The challenge is NOT being hit, stay hidden and only reveal yourself if you can guarantee your survival.

My suggestion would be decaying food/drinks or weapons being damaged when used (to maintain them would be another topic/suggestion). That's my shot at your idea :)

[Raged 187]

Sad Panda, the only problem is, this isn't intelligent discussion.

Its 2 or 3 interesting ideas couched inside a 3000 word rambling (your words, not mine) post.

In the future, if you want to have an intelligent correspondence with anyone about anything and you find yourself actually writing the words 'I am rambling' then go back and fucking edit.

Don't waste everyones time with 3000 words when 300 would have done the job. This isn't 12th grade english class.

You didn't have to read it. And who is everyone? My time wasn't wasted. Nice post, Panda.

[Sneakers O'Toole 57]

I got all the weapons I wanted and saved them in a tent.

When I die i mess about with all the noobs in the cities dying some more times for fun, and then run back to my tent to gear up.

I only want to play this game with decent equipment. I am not going to spend 30 hours to re-gear everytime I die. I'm all for 'realism' but it's a fucking video game, and I have only a certain amount of time for it.

[insitv 305]

I got all the weapons I wanted and saved them in a tent.

When I die i mess about with all the noobs in the cities dying some more times for fun, and then run back to my tent to gear up.

I only want to play this game with decent equipment. I am not going to spend 30 hours to re-gear everytime I die. I'm all for 'realism' but it's a fucking video game, and I have only a certain amount of time for it.

Well, the game is about surviving and scavenging. That's the premise of this mod. Starting with all gear available would make DayZ just like every other shooter, just in a different scenario. I think that's not what most people want.

The mention of spending 30 hours to gear up, i know it's exaggerated, just made me chuckle. Spend 10 minutes in a starting town, get some food and drinks and move north. Getting items to pvp is pretty easy. Getting the real good gear on the other hand takes time and shouldn't be risked to kill some beginners in Elektro/Cherno.

Time spent getting items is spent to gain an advantage. If you don't like that aspect i think this game is wrong for you.

Interesting to see how some people see the game and where their motivation comes from.

[syncmaster (DayZ) 63]

As much as i've read on these forums, there are ideas for tents and their behaviour that i would rate as possible solutions. I think the problem right now is that Rocket has more important matters to think about than the storing system. I think he and obviously everyone else knows they are broken but there isn't the possibility to fix them instantly.

I would rather disable them and see them come back in a stable state.

Just search the forum for possible solutions and let me say there are some really good ones in my opinion (like one tent per player or automatic despawn times you can't circumvent, so the need of constant moving of your camp).

I've said it before. If this is not on a very important list of things to fix at some point, then we are in trouble. I'm not saying it should even be on the radar at the moment, but something as simple as storage could make or break a game like DayZ IMO. I agree there are some decent ideas out there already, it just gets to me that people are so quick to write them for no reason instead of improving on them somehow. I mean we need people to find holes in ideas and figure out how they would be exploited in their new state just as much as we need to actually come up with the ideas.

I only want to play this game with decent equipment. I am not going to spend 30 hours to re-gear everytime I die. I'm all for 'realism' but it's a fucking video game, and I have only a certain amount of time for it.

That is the exact problem we are trying to solve. You are killing people with no fear of death while they do fear it. Why do you think their reasons for fearing death are any different from your reasons for cheating it? They don't care if you kill them because they move 100yds back to the coast, they care because they will lose all their good gear and/or wasted time. Its the same thing, you just use an advantage to get around it because it doesn't suit you.

People say don't get attached to your gear, but I hope that everyone is only saying that because we are in alpha. Your character means absolutely nothing unless you care about kill/days survived counts. Even if DayZ forces you to care about death because you don't want to waste all your gaming time running and/or lose that rare weapon, it is still accomplished its mission IMO. Get attached to your gear, fear death because it means hours of walking to get back to that same point, but don't be a ***** and just avoid the mechanic because you don't like it. If you want a game where you don't have to spend hours getting the best gear to go kill people, I'm sure the community can point you towards a game that is exactly like that. I hate to be that guy, but it definitely sounds like you should go play one of those games.

[ZekkCC (DayZ) 51]

Well articulated. You deserve my beans.

[insitv 305]

I've said it before. If this is not on a very important list of things to fix at some point, then we are in trouble. I'm not saying it should even be on the radar at the moment, but something as simple as storage could make or break a game like DayZ IMO. I agree there are some decent ideas out there already, it just gets to me that people are so quick to write them for no reason instead of improving on them somehow. I mean we need people to find holes in ideas and figure out how they would be exploited in their new state just as much as we need to actually come up with the ideas.

I'm totally with you on this, my apologies if it came across otherwise. The problem is the current state of the suggestions forum. There should be more stickies about "hot" topics like this to get a centralized discussion about them. Currently there a dozens of threads talking about the same stuff. Don't want to bash the moderators as their job is hard enough (speaking from experience as moderator on other forums) but a little bit more moderation wouldn't hurt.

Additionally there should be an option to up- or downvote suggestions to filter out very good/bad ones. Suggestions with thousands of upvotes should get the attention they deserve. As it is, they get lost in a sea of nothingness.