So...who exactly is this game supposed to be hard for?

[bazbake 456]

I was in a thread yesterday when someone made the comment, "Rocket said he wanted this game to be unfair and unforgiving." And then I realized I had heard those exact words repeated over and over again on the forums with no actual attribution to Rocket.

Now, whether or not that statement happens to have been true at one point, I have to say that I find it to be an interesting game design choice. I also find that when it comes to "unfair and unforgiving," it is only one group that seems to have this problem: new players and spawns. I have to say that the game has a difficulty curve that is incredibly steep at the beginning and then not only tapers off at the end but dramatically plummets past a certain point in the game. And it is not because of scripting or dupes but a problem with the actual game design.

At one point, players started off with pistols that did 2300 damage per round. It was enough to drop a zombie in one or two shots or fuck up another player in four or five. These were removed because it was an excuse to hunt players on spawn. But this scenario brings up several details of the time.

• Spawns started off with firepower.
  
• Spawns started off completely exposed.
  
• Spawns started off completely surrounded by zombies.
  
• Everyone knew where spawns would appear.
  

The firepower was removed because it was believed it would disincentivize spawnkilling (not really). Players still spawned completely exposed, surrounded by zombies, where older players knew they would be. In other words, they technically made the game harder for newspawns and easier for playerkillers.

I haven't seen zombies in spawn areas recently, so I now believe the current conditions for spawns are such:

• Unarmed.
  
• Completely exposed.
  
• Where everyone knows they will be.
  

Either way, spawns are basically the pegs in a whack-a-mole game unless they spawn in the Wilderness.

There are three threats to players in this game...

1. Environment
   
2. Zombies
   
3. Other players
   

And as I go through, I'll explain how the difficulty curve is different for new players who aren't using metagame online resources, veteran spawns and metagamers/easymoders, mid-level players who don't use metagame resources and mid-level easymoders, and high-geared players and high-geared easymoders.

Environment

Everybody has to keep fed and warm and there's no guarantee that food, heatpacks, or water are going to appear anywhere. With regard to equipment and player experience, this is probably the smoothest, most forgiving mechanic in the game. It's not your primary concern and it doesn't take much to keep yourself fed or hydrated. All players need to eat and drink and you can only eat or drink so much before those resources become useless. And even trees and house awnings provide some shelter from the elements. At some point you acquire matches and a hatchet and can find reliable food sources outside of town.

Difficulty curve:

• Starts off pretty decent, smooths out for the mid-equipped player, never completely goes away.
  

Zombies

This is actually the most interesting to me because I've seen claims that zombies are too easy and claims that zombies are too hard. I would have to say that they are both at the same time depending on where you are in the game.

Stealthing past zombies is pretty easy but zombies will randomly aggro you. And for early game this is kind of worthy of panic. It takes a while to figure out their pathfinding and stealth radius as well and they never seem to lose you even when you disappear from sight.

So, if you're a gamer just recognizing the game system and using the tools you have at hand, it may seem that zombies have a sixth sense for hunting you down and nothing they do makes sense and fuck this game. But if you're a metagamer who has looked this up online or one of the brilliant few who has experimented with zombie line of sight, you know exactly how to lose zombies so that initial shock and panic is gone and you usually have a plan.

However, as I mentioned before, you can spawn in Kamenka and not find a hatchet or crowbar until you reach Zelenogorsk. If you're a metagamer who has a map of all of the distant loot locations, then naturally zombies are less of a concern because you haven't had to struggle to find that information. Someone gave it to you. Likewise, if you're a veteran player who has scoured the map and knows exactly where to go first, you're in the same situation except you actually earned it (congratulations on playing the game!).

As your firepower goes up, you have to concern yourself with aggro radius. Even then, post-nerf, many weapons require entire clips to kill zombies short of headshots. Particularly those weapons early players have access to.

Difficulty curve:

• Early game, spawns are mostly helpless against zombies for quite some time unless they're metagamers relying on outside information and maps or unless they are fairly experienced. Even then, those who go directly to places they previously acquired weapons will have to worry about environment.
  
• Mid-game, or when a long-range weapon is acquired, zombies become easier to handle one at a time. At this point players have acquired hatchets. Zombies have spastic close-in animations that make it difficult to pull off headshots when they get in close, hindering gunplay. Experienced players will easily outmaneuver their pathfinding, though. Also, veteran players have tents which makes dying merely a nuisance.
  
• Late game, no one cares about zombies. Seriously.
  

Other Players

This is, at this point, the greatest threat. And it makes sense. Players are the smartest enemies with the best pathfinding and the widest aggro radius as well as possessing up to three times the health of zombies. They even have the best weapons. But they also carry the best loot, making the reward for killing them the best. However, here we see the most drastic difficulty curve.

When a player spawns, they spawn in an easily-predictable location with no cover and no form of self-defense. They are helpless and exposed. Veterans know to serpentine or go prone immediately, but new players are at the mercy of their circumstances.

Even when a player acquires a hatchet, they are only moderately capable of defending themselves. Any player they come across will take three blows from the hatchet instead of one and they will still have to get into melee range.

When a player acquires a pistol, they are not in a particularly better situation. Although they now have range to combat their enemies, it takes 11 to 16 rounds to kill a player with early firearms. Metagamers and veterans have an advantage, though. They know where to quickly acquire mid-game weapons.

At mid-game, once a primary firearm is required, the amount of shots to kill an enemy drops to 2 if you have a sniper or bolt-action rifle, 3 if you have a shotgun, and 6 if you have an assault rifle. At this point, you can engage and defend against the majority of mid-game opponents.

And you can also start building camps. Dying while in possession of a camp allows you to recover quickly and stop loss of progress. So an early-game player loses everything but a mid-game player loses only what they were carrying on themselves when they died and perhaps 15 minutes of time they spend running from one place to the next. Veteran mid-game players consider death to be little more than a mild delay.

At late game, you have established multiple camps and acquired a sniper rifle or machine gun, and things change drastically. Nightvision goggles allow you to kill other players unmolested once the sun goes down. Machine guns allow you to fire twice as many rounds per second and hold more than 3 times as much ammo per inventory slot. Sniper rifles kill instantly from up to a mile and a half away. Ghillie suits conceal your bandit status and make you nearly invisible against the terrain. At this point you may be in possession of multiple tents such that whatever you lose when dying is now a much smaller fraction of your acquired loot -- death itself becomes a mere nuisance. Veteran late-game players don't even really care that much.

• Early game, you are helpless and you will die and even if you see your attacker you will still die.
  
• Mid-game, you can defend yourself against other mid-game players. You are untouchable by early game players. Dying is kind of scary but you're prepared for it and can negate most of the negative effects. Veterans don't think about it much.
  
• Late-game, no one in mid or early game is a threat. Period. And if you're a veteran late-game player? You're an invisible ubermensch creeping around in the dark one-shotting players or two-shotting them with silenced weapons. And when you die, you hit one of your ten tents. And if you're a metagamer, that would actually be fifty tents across ten servers. Either way, death doesn't matter. You have officially broken the game. Transcended it.
  

Basically?

So when we talk about improving the damage that zombies do, the threat level, their pathfinding, their aggression, when we talk about how boring the game is getting or how easy it is to survive, it is important to understand that you are not the only person playing this game. It is important to understand that there are in-game maps because it is assumed the players wouldn't go onto other websites to look up where all of the loot is.

When we talk about increasing the difficulty and maintaining engagement, understand that the new players are already getting their shit stomped in. They are freeclimbing Everest without a sherpa's help while others are building elevators in case they want to visit again. If we start talking about what is necessary to increase the difficulty level, the real question is, how hard and how often do we kick late-game players and veterans in the balls, not how to make newspawns bleed and cry harder than we ever had to in the first place.

The game is already ridiculous difficult for them. The question is how to make it easier to kill veterans and late-game players, how to slow them down, how to take away their advantages and make them shit themselves when they encounter a stranger in the dark.

Just a thought.

• tl;dr Game balance has been hurting newbs too much. It should be hurting veterans and late-gamers.
  

Edited August 16, 2012 by BazBake

[KarinjaNinja 80]

Yeahhhhhhhh um that was too long too read for a complaint. All I can say is this is ALPHA!!!!!! And more content will be added and the standalone is on its way. Stop playing now if it's too easy.

[Brudagon (DayZ) 64]

I feel for you man. I feel for the fact that you made this long post because someone posted something that rocket never said.

[jay.pis 32]

Yeahhhhhhhh um that was too long too read for a complaint. All I can say is this is ALPHA!!!!!! And more content will be added and the standalone is on its way. Stop playing now if it's too easy.

Obviously you didn't bother to read to understand that it wasn't a complaint and quit with the ALPHA!!! already, everyone already knows this, it says so when you download the mod.

@OP good read and I do agree that more content and or difficulty adjustments should be made for the veteran players.

[Lennsik 176]

Your first statement is rendered null if you went and read the "Rocket Says" thread.

[Hetstaine 10852]

No matter what they do with any game it is always going to be so. Learning curve>die lots>learn>win. It also is always going to come down to how you play. Server hop or dont, depends if you want to play how it is meant to be played. Get to the barracks and no gear..hop hop hop>boring. You have not mastered it , you are just using an exploit within the whole setup to get what you want faster. Any way you cut the cheese all you are doing is cheating yourself. Personally i think hopping is one of the lamest things people do in the game, but thats just me.

Things are going to be introduced to slow down the vet as compared to the noob, slower walking running etc once you have more gear, water food degenerating quicker and no duping. (thank fuck) But no matter what..new players will always find it harder than vets..you cannot change that , its impossible. The only way to change it is within the playerbase itself..and that is something that no dev can program in..he can give us the tools but it is how we use them.

[McLovinCR 29]

I do agree.

The thing is that is more a mentality than a difficult level not yet implemented.

Sure, you can enable more goals or buildings constructions, but if a douchebag player wants to snipe spawners in electro or cherno.. they will do it no matter what.

The question in hand is: How can we give the new players an in-game guidance without giving them unfair advantage?

[sostronk 334]

Other players are the only real threat in this game. The environment is no problem once you learn how to hunt and refill canteens and there are way too many soda cans in the loot table. Zombies are no issue at all. I got killed by them once or twice when I first started playing, just getting the feeling, but now they might as well not be in the game. Players right now are the only threat. No balance in the game atm.

[BlksnshN 127]

I honestly only see two types of players anymore. Completely geared out, or fresh spawn. There seems to be no middle of the road players any more.

I'd say the duping and infinite ammo are to blame.

[rybo 171]

Answer= The Noobs???

[Sneakers O'Toole 57]

Seems like a lot of words for : tents are op. Duping will be fixed.

Squads/Clans have all the power. Just like real life, single players get the scraps.

Permadeath means almost nothing for a squad member. For a high-geared loner it means RUNNING SIMULATOR 2012!

[infctedmushr00mxbox360@gmail.com 68]

Who said it was going to be hard?

[Inception. 9443]

You know the two things I want to be implemented into this game?

1. Faster loading times, haha.

2. Hoards of zombies. Zombies roaming fields in hoards of hundreds--maybe even thousands. THAT would make the game more challenging, interesting and fun.

[bazbake 456]

My observations are about how the game performs when it's working correctly, not bugs. And my suggestions for changes to game mechanics are over in the suggestions thread.

In the house of DayZ, vets and late-gamers are upstairs asking for fluffier mattresses and premium cable. So the devs decided to put padlocks on the doors and beartraps on the stairs.

Just my general observation about the Alpha build so far.

Edited August 16, 2012 by BazBake

[white 44]

Seems like a lot of words for : tents are op. Duping will be fixed.

Squads/Clans have all the power. Just like real life, single players get the scraps.

Permadeath means almost nothing for a squad member. For a high-geared loner it means RUNNING SIMULATOR 2012!

well rocket already posted that duping is unfixable, so lvie with it till the stand alone

i agree with op, when im bored i stay in the mountains and shoot newly spawned players with a m107. but pistols wont help them.

yeah i also try to hunt snipers, but usually when i find them before they see me, if i miss 1 shot they disconnect, sometimes even when i dont miss, and dont get the kill count.

Edited August 16, 2012 by white

[dougan25 34]

once measures are taken to prevent duping and infinite ammo exploits end-game will be significantly more difficult. AS50s will be impractical because the ammo will be far too rare. Same with many other "end-game" rare guns. Tents and vehicles won't be brimming with duped end-game guns and ammo.

[thehumandove 344]

Cool story bro, but no. Play warZ

[envy9o9 3]

If anybody actually read the post, they'd see he actually has a point and isn't simply complaining. It was a very well thought out post, bravo OP.

[prestondemaria@gmail.com 65]

The thing is that you can't really try to put veteran players at a disadvantage, because, well they are the veterans. This will go the same with any other game that has been made. Once you have played the game enough, you are better than others and newbies can't really do anything about it. In any game, the more you play, the better you will get. I understand what you are trying to say here, but nothing can really be done about it. If you play a game a lot, you will expect to become better and not get randomly nerfed when you achieve, "veteran status" so that the newbies that just now start playing can beat you.

[sixbarns 217]

I haven't been spawn camped so starting without a weapon is fine for me at least. Even if spawn camping was a major issue, starting out with a weapon wouldn't solve it.

OP made a lot of other interesting points and I'm all for making the game much more difficult for experienced players. Maybe this will change when content is added to the game and AI is rewritten? I doubt Rocket and Co. are looking at the game thinking, "well, this looks good enough."

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

TL;DR OP has never played a roguelike and thinks every game is supposed to go easy-medium-hard.

Most roguelikes start out brutally hard, unforgiving and bleak. 90% of deaths occur in the first few minutes or hours. It's not status quo, but that's okay. Not every game has to have the same difficulty curve. "Trial by fire" is part of the game. If the newbs can't hack it, fuck 'em.

Edited August 16, 2012 by ZedsDeadBaby

[Gumpnstein 133]

This is really long but worth the read. I think everything you say is 100% on and is what dayz is. I have been screaming for months that the mid-level play to end game needed to be worked on, instead all the time has been spent on listening to newbs bean hunting in cherno and going back and forth with the mod and never improving upon what was a wonderful beginning to the game. It truly was awesome 3 months ago and it still isn't bad I would assume early on. But mid game late game is nothing but player killing and almost no worries about death. The lack of fear of death is the thing missing for me late game. Its not that I can't die, its just that if i do die it doesn't really bother me. You said this in the article. The mod has never at any point moved forward in my opinion. Adding wood is not moving a mod forward..You could actually argue that the game has went backwards and is worse now than it was ever in lots of ways. The only thing that has kept me going is the promise of something more and everyday my belief that the mod I imagined 3 months ago that would be here one day will ever be here at all.

[drschwamm 1]

You obviously didn't get the statement you quoted in the beginning. There is and will be no bigger game balancing made by rocket or anyone else, the only things that get changed are bugs or features wich encourage unfair playing such as, as you stated, the spawn weapon that got the noobs killed for their ammo. All the other stuff is in hand of the people playing this game.

And some of your points don't ake any sense at all: You say this game needs balancing to put veteran players in a disadvantage? Why? Because they have a strategy? Because they don't cry when they die? Because they think about what they are doing and make almost no mistakes? For me, that rather sounds like they are just generally better players and it has nothing to do with the game supporting them in any way.

[Banicks 55]

I think I understand what you are saying, in a long way of saying it, the learning curve is difficult for new people?

Yes, it is, because it is a new experience for people. The majority of people have been playing for a few months and know their way around buildings, zombies and towns. Where to avoid and what to try for.

Ultimately you get experience, and refer to my sig for insight on that.

[aphex187 52]

Again we get some retarded responses, took too long to read or go play War Z which isn't even out yet genius!

But yeah i agree on most of what you typed up there. For me the biggest problems are the duping of tents and the high end equipment that is so easily found on any server. Also zombies are a cinch to get rid of if they see you, needs to be slightly like Chernarus Apocalypse where they spawn basically any where. As for players, well it's been said many a times but taking away that bandit skin was what ruined most peoples experiences on DayZ, once that went the games dynamics quickly shifted to any other FPS.

For me these are what killed the game

High end weapons (L85, 107, AS50's should be taken out full stop! As should NVG)

Duping

Zombies should spawn anywhere

Bandit skin

Hackers (for me this is what has killed DayZ)

Glitches (dead army soldiers on the floor and barbed wire should been taken out when these ugly glitches first appeared. Find it strange why he left in those soldiers which haven't even been touched by any z's?)

Ghillie suits (stupid idea, a guy coupled with an L85 and As50 now becomes god)

People only wanting daytimes servers for me killed the realism of this game, no one wants to play in the dark which again took away something that was unique compared to other games.