How do people feel about tents? (not about the bugs)

[sostronk 334]

First, I want to point out that I'm not looking at the bugs with losing gear, duplicating or placement. Right now this is serving a purpose in the Alpha Mod because there are no ways for loot depreciation in game.

But, no matter how well you hide your tent, it is going to be found in the game right now (even without hackers). Pretty much every tent I have had on various servers has been hit at some time. On many of them it was raided every night. And new tents would appear within a 1-2 sqr km grid with the same stuff I had in my tent. Other times the gear would be stolen along with vehicles or anything else I had there (or someone destroyed them). It was getting to a point where my gaming experience was completely revolving around scouting out my tent and the areas around it to try to identify where my gear went. And Rocket is talking about this Chernaraus+ map to possibly go up 200 players on one server, which is only going to amplify this. I already feel like in order to not be griefed every single day is being online 24/7 and protecting my tent. But I have a life and a full time career, so it can't be done. In reality though, why should I need to do this once the game has integrated an adequate loot table and better means of loot depreciation. I mean, if I had a tent, Id be sleeping in it when Im not "online" and if someone came along to steal all my stuff, someone is going to die.

But its not just that. I also really don't like how tents last for so long after you die (3days). With this setup it means your never a fresh spawn. When you die you can pick up some food and water and head straight back to your tent to rekit out. It feels like this completely removes the concept of a new life when I can use equipment, gear and weapons I have from a previous life. Shouldn't tents be destroyed when you die?

[The Aquatic Land Walrus 565]

The idea rocket is merging all the servers together to a few with 200 or so people scares the living shit out of me.

I run into people on 8 player servers.

It will be HELL in 200 player servers. Is there a way to protest?

I mean, seriously. You want high player servers, go look for one. You shouldn't be required to be on one.

[Thasik 79]

If I could have my way, I'd get rid of them entirely. People are too obsessed with storing whole armories of weapons and supplies and it ruins the whole "survivor" experience for everyone. Same thing with vehicle storage.

Of course this will more than likely never happen. Realistically, I would like only supplies/non-weapon storage in tents. IE, make it so you can only have a max of 2 primaries, carried on your person. Ammunition, clothing, food and drink would all be able to store in tents.

Not sure about them being destroyed when you die. I wouldn't want them to go away entirely because people should be free to loot stuff you have stored, no matter when they get there (your responsibility to hide it well, of course).

Edited September 2, 2012 by Thasik

[that 1 stranger 19]

I don't use tents because people will find them. Unless I go into debug land (and very far in mind you), someone is going to find my tent. Even hackers will teleport and find my tent.

I carry everything on my person, just as a reminder that if I die, I lose everything. No pressure at all really >_>

[cfnz 15]

My only thought at this stage is that they have too much storage space, I'd be inclined to remove the specific weapon and backpack slots and just leave the general storage (same for vehicles too).

I don't object to them being destroyed on death.

[aplum12 69]

i like the tents idea... because when I find peoples tent city's Insta loot for lyfe for me :D :D :D

[Sneakers O'Toole 57]

I really dont understand why people automatically expect that tents should dissapear upon player death.

If I go and make a tent in my garden, then jump in front of a train, the tent will remain, obviously.

[Welch (DayZ) 756]

I like the idea, but I never get around to using them. Because I die. A lot.

[schmotto 32]

Don't mind tents, but I reckon vehicles shpould be stripped of a lot of their storage spae, cos as it, is most people hide them away and never use them.

[cfnz 15]

I really dont understand why people automatically expect that tents should dissapear upon player death.

If I go and make a tent in my garden, then jump in front of a train, the tent will remain, obviously.

Very true, but you'll never be able to access it again. Which is why I don't object to tents disappearing on death, when you die, you lose everything.

[hatfieldcw 184]

I don't like tents much, because they embody my least favorite element of the game: Persistent inventory after death. In my mind, when you die in the game, you should start over like it's your first time playing. Having a persistent tent stockpile breaks immersion for me in a very serious way.

I think of DayZ as a multiplayer roguelike. If it was single player, I'd want the world to be reset every time you die. Vehicles, tents, loot, barbed wire, all reset. Since it's multiplayer, it's not fair for the world to get wiped out every time any player dies, and it's not practical to ban players from a given server when they die on it (although I think that would be rad). Tents aren't the only problem, either. Vehicles, knowledge of teh map, even a posse of buddies on the server all break the "fresh start" ideal of the roguelike model.

The fact that I can play for a while, then die, then respawn in the same world is ruinous for me. I'm never a lost survivor on a foreign coast trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. I'm always "Near Kamenka", and then I use my uncanny hunches to run into the wilderness to a spot that should not, logically, conceal a camping tent with an M14 and a map and a compass and some morphine and some beans and a full canteen etc. and find exactly that. Spawning with the knowledge of where a fueled motorcycle is hidden flies in the face of the spirit of the game I want to play. Tents allow me to bequeath my assets to my next incarnation when I die, and that makes my character immortal, which makes the threat of death insignificant. No fear, no horror, no suspense, no fun. The worst that can happen to me is I'll have my helicopter blown up. I never get sent back to square one. I never lose anything important. If I play with friends, I don't even lose that much time.

It allows people to play the game at the highest level of intensity, doing Cherno deathmatch or sniping Stary or farming the barracks with the full knowledge that whatever they achieve, be it negative humanity or a new rare piece of gear, that little tick toward 100% completion on their progress bar will be preserved forever. Most of use are usually around 80% amazing, with the tools for infinite survival, military-grade firearms and as much food and medicine as we could ever hope to need. I want us to be scraping by at around 15%, feeling good about having food but worried that we're not ready for a hostile player encounter, or hiding on a hill praying that the next guy to walk by has antibiotics we can kill him for.

The guy with a GPS and a ghillie suit and a DMR should be the exception, and he has become the rule because he is eternal. A bullet in his face? He takes eight minutes to hit up his tent and he's everything he ever was. Find his tent, painstakingly empty it out and save it? He takes thirty minutes to switch servers, get gear from a different tent, reconstitute the one you attacked and return to service. He is a juggernaut, a force of nature. He'll always be on that hospital roof with that AS50 TWS, because those things are tied permanently to him.

So I hate tents as they are. I'd be okay with them if they were unbugged, fully lootable, destructible, etc. If you put stuff in a tent, you should be about 50% sure you'll never see it again. You might stash some stuff there while you raid a loot site, or deposit something you want a buddy to pick up later, but the idea that you can cache gear for use in a future life is poison to me.

[Odrama Vin Laden 18]

I don't like tents much, because they embody my least favorite element of the game: Persistent inventory after death. In my mind, when you die in the game, you should start over like it's your first time playing. Having a persistent tent stockpile breaks immersion for me in a very serious way.

I think of DayZ as a multiplayer roguelike. If it was single player, I'd want the world to be reset every time you die. Vehicles, tents, loot, barbed wire, all reset. Since it's multiplayer, it's not fair for the world to get wiped out every time any player dies, and it's not practical to ban players from a given server when they die on it (although I think that would be rad). Tents aren't the only problem, either. Vehicles, knowledge of teh map, even a posse of buddies on the server all break the "fresh start" ideal of the roguelike model.

The fact that I can play for a while, then die, then respawn in the same world is ruinous for me. I'm never a lost survivor on a foreign coast trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. I'm always "Near Kamenka", and then I use my uncanny hunches to run into the wilderness to a spot that should not, logically, conceal a camping tent with an M14 and a map and a compass and some morphine and some beans and a full canteen etc. and find exactly that. Spawning with the knowledge of where a fueled motorcycle is hidden flies in the face of the spirit of the game I want to play. Tents allow me to bequeath my assets to my next incarnation when I die, and that makes my character immortal, which makes the threat of death insignificant. No fear, no horror, no suspense, no fun. The worst that can happen to me is I'll have my helicopter blown up. I never get sent back to square one. I never lose anything important. If I play with friends, I don't even lose that much time.

It allows people to play the game at the highest level of intensity, doing Cherno deathmatch or sniping Stary or farming the barracks with the full knowledge that whatever they achieve, be it negative humanity or a new rare piece of gear, that little tick toward 100% completion on their progress bar will be preserved forever. Most of use are usually around 80% amazing, with the tools for infinite survival, military-grade firearms and as much food and medicine as we could ever hope to need. I want us to be scraping by at around 15%, feeling good about having food but worried that we're not ready for a hostile player encounter, or hiding on a hill praying that the next guy to walk by has antibiotics we can kill him for.

The guy with a GPS and a ghillie suit and a DMR should be the exception, and he has become the rule because he is eternal. A bullet in his face? He takes eight minutes to hit up his tent and he's everything he ever was. Find his tent, painstakingly empty it out and save it? He takes thirty minutes to switch servers, get gear from a different tent, reconstitute the one you attacked and return to service. He is a juggernaut, a force of nature. He'll always be on that hospital roof with that AS50 TWS, because those things are tied permanently to him.

So I hate tents as they are. I'd be okay with them if they were unbugged, fully lootable, destructible, etc. If you put stuff in a tent, you should be about 50% sure you'll never see it again. You might stash some stuff there while you raid a loot site, or deposit something you want a buddy to pick up later, but the idea that you can cache gear for use in a future life is poison to me.

My thoughts 100%. Thats exactly why after about a months time, i have never even looted a tent on purpose. Just because everyone else is ruining their own and others' fun, why should I?

[Tigger (DayZ) 24]

I think the game should be harder, not easier. It would be great if the map was 4 times as large in every dimension and maps would only show a part of your surroundings and waypoints would be permanently switched to off.

[Vipala 32]

The idea rocket is merging all the servers together to a few with 200 or so people scares the living shit out of me.

I run into people on 8 player servers.

It will be HELL in 200 player servers. Is there a way to protest?

I mean, seriously. You want high player servers, go look for one. You shouldn't be required to be on one.

Source ? That would be awesome lol.(except for the fact that all tents would be found in a day)

My thoughts 100%. Thats exactly why after about a months time, i have never even looted a tent on purpose. Just because everyone else is ruining their own and others' fun, why should I?

Fun is subjective, have you considered that not everyone finds starting from 0 fun ? Maybe what they like about the game, is killing people, getting loot and storing it for whenever they die ?

IF there was no item storing(lets assume that tents are fixed soon), then there would be no point in trying to get loot if you already have it and the ONLY thing to do in the game would be to kill other players.

Maybe you find killing an animal(easy, common), cutting logs(easy, common) starting a fire and cooking meat to eat, then going and filling your bottle to drink every day fun, but i'm pretty sure the majority of the people don't.

Edited September 2, 2012 by Vipala

[azlen 14]

I don't like tents much, because they embody my least favorite element of the game: Persistent inventory after death. In my mind, when you die in the game, you should start over like it's your first time playing. Having a persistent tent stockpile breaks immersion for me in a very serious way.

I think of DayZ as a multiplayer roguelike. If it was single player, I'd want the world to be reset every time you die. Vehicles, tents, loot, barbed wire, all reset. Since it's multiplayer, it's not fair for the world to get wiped out every time any player dies, and it's not practical to ban players from a given server when they die on it (although I think that would be rad). Tents aren't the only problem, either. Vehicles, knowledge of teh map, even a posse of buddies on the server all break the "fresh start" ideal of the roguelike model.

The fact that I can play for a while, then die, then respawn in the same world is ruinous for me. I'm never a lost survivor on a foreign coast trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. I'm always "Near Kamenka", and then I use my uncanny hunches to run into the wilderness to a spot that should not, logically, conceal a camping tent with an M14 and a map and a compass and some morphine and some beans and a full canteen etc. and find exactly that. Spawning with the knowledge of where a fueled motorcycle is hidden flies in the face of the spirit of the game I want to play. Tents allow me to bequeath my assets to my next incarnation when I die, and that makes my character immortal, which makes the threat of death insignificant. No fear, no horror, no suspense, no fun. The worst that can happen to me is I'll have my helicopter blown up. I never get sent back to square one. I never lose anything important. If I play with friends, I don't even lose that much time.

It allows people to play the game at the highest level of intensity, doing Cherno deathmatch or sniping Stary or farming the barracks with the full knowledge that whatever they achieve, be it negative humanity or a new rare piece of gear, that little tick toward 100% completion on their progress bar will be preserved forever. Most of use are usually around 80% amazing, with the tools for infinite survival, military-grade firearms and as much food and medicine as we could ever hope to need. I want us to be scraping by at around 15%, feeling good about having food but worried that we're not ready for a hostile player encounter, or hiding on a hill praying that the next guy to walk by has antibiotics we can kill him for.

The guy with a GPS and a ghillie suit and a DMR should be the exception, and he has become the rule because he is eternal. A bullet in his face? He takes eight minutes to hit up his tent and he's everything he ever was. Find his tent, painstakingly empty it out and save it? He takes thirty minutes to switch servers, get gear from a different tent, reconstitute the one you attacked and return to service. He is a juggernaut, a force of nature. He'll always be on that hospital roof with that AS50 TWS, because those things are tied permanently to him.

So I hate tents as they are. I'd be okay with them if they were unbugged, fully lootable, destructible, etc. If you put stuff in a tent, you should be about 50% sure you'll never see it again. You might stash some stuff there while you raid a loot site, or deposit something you want a buddy to pick up later, but the idea that you can cache gear for use in a future life is poison to me.

No offense intended, but here is what I find wrong with your post:

You talk as if every time you die, you should be playing a new game. The sad fact of life is you aren't, and the game wasn't intended for it to be so. That wonder you had when you first spawned on the shore, were scared for your life, and had no idea where you were or what to do next? That is how you should START playing DayZ. But no game of this genre could accomplish that, because it isn't how the game was made. Your name doesn't change when you die does it? Do your facial features change? Does the way you move and interact with the game change? No.

It may be a "new life" but simply because every THING you ever had and ever were is gone now. But you cannot simply magically forget everything that ever happened and all that you had learned from your past lives. That is simply not possible until 100+ maps and entire cache's of different weapon sets for each map are made. I'm going to be the big meanie to tell you that will never come to pass. Never.

You are describing the type of game that YOU want. But you are not describing the type of game that DayZ IS. Yes, the game is about surviving the zombie apocalypse and the others trying to survive as well. But a better experienced person survives longer and better than someone who hasn't a clue what they are doing.

Now for your shpeal on tents: You say that being able to run to your old tent and gain your previous items makes you immortal? By that logic, there should be set maps that spawn one set of loot. Period. Once everything is looted and it belongs to someone, that's it. NOTHING else should spawn until everyone on that server has died and started over. Oh wait, that's not possible, because that wouldn't be the game that DayZ is. What about zombies? They are immortal, are they not? Shouldn't they, once killed and purged from a town, never return, until the entire island of Chernarus is free of the deadly virus? Yes, but that wouldn't make a game now would it. At least, not the game that DayZ is.

The only thing I really agree with you on is the availability of things like food/water/tools/guns. If they want this game to feel like you are surviving, they would really have to throttle back the spawns of things. For instance, instead of going into the Supermarket and finding a plethora of tools, food, maybe a gun and ammo, and backpacks, you find a can of food, maybe some soda, and possibly a spare Makarov mag. Just a few things here and there. Not this 20 food and 40 drink in the store. But that is something that will most likely be changed anyway.

The last thing is what you said about Mr. Invincible Ghillie man. You said that if you kill him, all he has to do is go back to his tent and get new stuff? And if you essentially destroy his tent, he just switches servers to another camp he has made? I fail to see any sort of problem here.

He didn't just shoot gear out his ass and paste it over 12 different servers because it tickled his fancy. He had to work hard to (duping, glitches aside) to set up all those camps IN CASE some unfortunate tragedy should befell him. How is that any less fair than if you fortified a house in a zombie apocalypse? No matter where you go from then on out, you have a back-up place to retreat when things are grim. I would agree with you if no one could touch your stuff, if what is yours is yours and that is it. That is where I would draw the line.

But at any moment, some random noob, a looting thief, or vehicle hunter could stumble upon this man's tent, and everything he has worked for to set up and prepare himself for this apocalypse is GONE. I say again, I fail to see the lack of fairness in that.

If you kill him, he loses everything he had (as long as you are not dumb enough to leave the body). If he loses his tents, he loses everything that was in them (In case you didn't know, 5-6 hatchet swings destroy any tent, so crying about moving stuff is a joke.) The bottom line is he is just as succeptable to tragedy as ANYONE else in the game, he is just doing more to prepare for it than the guy shooting Lee Enfield's in Cherno's supermarket on a 47 pop server. He worked for his right to keep his gear, and he is entitled to keep it. You didn't find his tents and he got re-armed? You didn't hide his body and he got his stuff back? Whose fault is that other than your own? You get what you earn in this game, and if someone spends 32 hours hunting for a good spot for a base, then another 20 hours hunting for barbed wire, sandbags, and tank traps to fortify it and do everything he can to protect his stuff, why shouldn't he be allowed to? Anyone with a vehicle can drive along and run over everything he has worked for, and he is left with what he chose to hide elsewhere, and what is on his back. This is probably about as realistic as this game is going to get. This man is a juggernaut because he earned his right to be one. If a noob comes around to his base with a toolbox and a hatchet, everything could be gone on his next visit there. And no matter how powerful or geared someone might be, a Makarov bullet, a crossbow bolt, or a crowbar to the face will end everything you didn't work to protect. Welcome to life. Welcome to DayZ.

/rant_off

[codave 121]

I think the game should be harder, not easier. It would be great if the map was 4 times as large in every dimension and maps would only show a part of your surroundings and waypoints would be permanently switched to off.

Personally, the only reason I kept playing after the first few hours is because of how harsh the game is. This game pisses me off to no end, but I keep playing. It's challenging, more challenging than any other game I've ever played.

I'm with this guy for making it more harsh. This is the only reason I have no intention of setting up a tent, obtaining a vehicle, or finding some other way to make starting a new life easier. If nothing is really riding on your life, how much fun can the fight really be, even if you win?

Up the stakes. Start us with 0 inventory. Remove waypoints on maps, make characters saved on each specific server (not the hive). It's too easy to jump on a 0/40 population server, raid a few loot locations in safety, log out, and into another server with the gear you took virtually no risk getting. I don't like the cross-server saves - at all.

You can throw it in the dumpster with the tents for all I care.

[codave 121]

This man is a juggernaut because he earned his right to be one.

This is a ridiculously absurd statement.

The only reason we even have Juggernauts in the game is because of hacks and other abuses.

Edited September 2, 2012 by codave

[Bludy 324]

i agree with the fact that you shouldn't be able to stock 10 rifles in a tent..but i always place one with basic stuff, like compass, meds, food ,drink, one ak, matches, bigger pack..nothing amazing so maybe they won't steal everything. i like to go back there without too much haste..and it doesn't disturb me because i know where to go when i die..scravenging cherno with nothing to loose is the funniest thing you can do so i never miss the opportunity to do that..sure that if you kill me i won't come back with some alien weapon..i'll have some real genuine fun going towards my tent, so if in the trip i don't find matches or compass i'll have one in my place.. in the end..i love to raid big camps..don't stop doing those tents towns admins!

[HappyMushroom 68]

This is a ridiculously absurd statement.

The only reason we even have Juggernauts in the game is because of hacks and other abuses.

You just contradicted yourself.

You don't earn the right to be a juggernaut when you hack shit in. When a man puts a good amount of time stockpiling a tent full of supplies, then gets killed by some hackers script, he's supposed to go and start his WHOLE journey over again? That game sounds fucking terrible. No, this is what you do:

Let's say you found 2 cars in real life. Fixed it up, and drove around with them. Stored one in your garage, and kept it for later. If I take your car, in the night, are you going to bitch and cry about having to go find a new one? No! You're going to go back to your garage, drive that bitch, and find whoever took your car and shoot him in the face. You then take HIS items, store it in your car, and drive them both away, strapped to your feet, because that's how triumphant you are. I can build a tent in real life. I can store guns in that tent, and if I got robbed of my gear, I can go back to it and deal with whoever stole what I had and be done with it. Tents are in the game, people can store stuff in tents, get over it.

[Odrama Vin Laden 18]

Maybe you find killing an animal(easy, common), cutting logs(easy, common) starting a fire and cooking meat to eat, then going and filling your bottle to drink every day fun, but i'm pretty sure the majority of the people don't.

No, that not at all what is fun to me. It's more about the excitement of going fresh again and thinking, fuck I lost my m16. I've gotta go back to nwaf and get a new one while I've only got a Winchester. The fun is starting over. If all you like doing Is killing people, in a nOn tense environment where you don't stand to lose anything, why don't you just go play a game designed for that. On the other hand I'm gonna keep playing my SURVIVAL game.

[Sneakers O'Toole 57]

Very true, but you'll never be able to access it again. Which is why I don't object to tents disappearing on death, when you die, you lose everything.

Well, neither will I be reborn with a different coloured jacket, with knowledge identical to that I had previously. Even in your scenario I can still run to some other players campsite.

If you really want to lose everything when you die in DayZ, your cd key should become invalid. How would you like that?

[bournesto33 21]

how do you know its all bugs...i mean there was at least 8 tents all armed to the teeth and when those players get back to them they are all gone...why? because I destroyed them, so dont think they are all bugs

[rjack85 55]

Tents are dumb. If you survived the zombie apocalypse are you going to go put your hard won loot in a cloth tent? I don't think so. You would find a building/cave/hole in the ground you could barricade/lock/camoflage to keep out the zombies. Other humans would be smart enough to get in maybe but zombies are dead and not too bright. The tent thing is just an usless Arma holdover. Get rid of them.

[Axz 30]

I quite like the idea of a slightly bigger tent with a tiny little area you could sit/lie in to get out of the rain, but that's prob' just me.

But with the whole tent / vehicle bug thing I don't use tents, I want to, but untill it's fixed I just can't be bothered.

Edited September 2, 2012 by Axz

[sixfeetgiantbunnyrabbit 40]

maybe we could try randomly respawning tents of dead players with every server restart. So if you die your tent vanishes from the map but is randomly placed somewhere else in the woods after server restart.

your loot is still there but you as a freshly spawned player have no knowledge of its whereabouts while everyone is still able to raid it.

In my understanding dayz is trying to be a survival game (Rocket mentioned a few times that this aspect really fascinated him and fueld the idea of dayz) and survival is all about limited ressources and being forced to work around. having your tent come with you through several lifes breaks that immersion.