Loot Mechanics

[Enko 1]

I've asked this question a few times, nobody seems to get a decent response.

Me and a couple of friends have been roaming around a few areas, we've done a loop which takes us about an hour to complete, but comming back to the start all the supplies are just the same, the same and the same.

Some people think that it takes only as much as 20-30 minuites, others mention it can take hours or even a day. I've seen posts of people saying that they've got spawns that come back really frequently, but to me the only real diversity in spawns is when we gave up on the area, tried another server and got a lot more out of it.

Is there any sort of general thought or well known mechanics for this? The route we took passed us two largeish sources for food, ammo and so. It works the first time but not the second time around.

[oilman 72]

Well for one thing, if by 'tried another server' you mean you switched servers just to loot the same airfield five or so times, that's pretty lame, man.

[ramboraider 2]

Yep, worst thing is that people start to memorize the Weapon spawns, and keep on coming there when they die, example is Elektro

[Enko 1]

Once you find the weapon spawns once, it's already clear it'll do it again. Moreso the point of this is if there is any sort of known timing, people hover round and camp the areas, i've been to Elektro once and there was just a squad of four people camping one of the spawnpoints that I found before.

When we changed server we spent an hour doing all the loot, gathering food and ammo for our guns.

[ThatGuy (DayZ) 47]

Let me get this straight,

You weren't able to repeatedly grab "good" loot spawns in the same area, so you switched servers to re-loot for better stuff in the same area... That's not legit, not at all.

As to what you're asking, personally I've noticed that most loot that respawn in the same area will be different. I tend to keep moving though, so what do I know?

[Enko 1]

We're planning to setup in one rough area of the map, however it's hard to do if we all have to keep moving around, the loop we did was large, it wasn't farming one specific area at all and it took about 40 minuites of that hour on pure travel alone.

If we have to spend more than an hour going out just to get one or two mags, which could even be used on the trip, it binds a little futility, especially as there is no centeralised loot safety, so we can't just keep gathering into a centeral store, it has to be on all of us meaning you have to loot far more frequently.

I'm using a Winchester with plentyful ammo, but after awhile it all just goes and then you're waiting again, either forced to leave and spend an hour or so looking for another location or find another gun.

[oilman 72]

So in other words, doing it properly was too hard and took too long, so you switched servers repeatedly.

Sounds legit.

[swayzesghost 14]

This is why loot needs to be randomized. I don't care if it's "realistic" that the best stuff is at military/airfield locations...It'd make the game a lot better if you couldn't server-hop.

For now, people who focus on exploiting the weak points get a huge advantage over those who play fair.

[oilman 72]

Making a game to go AROUND exploits instead of fixing the exploits themselves is a really dodgy way to develop.

[Enko 1]

Most servers have all the decent loot gone, switching to another in this case didn't even have anything other than more food, drink and ammo for the Winchester, however it does come to the point where it's pointless. I left a Glock for over an hour ontop of Cherno Hospital, nobody picked it up nor did it despawn on itself, we came back later and it was there and we picked it up after finding more space.

Going through servers repeatedly is pointless, even if you were to do it in some spawnpoint that had a 20% chance to spawn an M4, you wouldn't be able to use it without the ammo, I had an AKM with 3 mags from one spawn, aside from a little more it suits perfectly well and a NATO weapon would be far harder, one problem also resides in that a teammate had an M16 which actually seemed worse than a more common AKM.

You can only carry so much, then what do you do with it? Personally I like the Winchester more as it's not got any ammo issues, but the point of this is that we'd rather stay in one area rather than spending our time having to constantly travel half way over the map.

Clearly this would be easier to do if there was a safe, centeralised stash you could store things in, that way going out to gather wouldn't be so bad as you can just dump your active stuff first to get more gear, yet as you need to keep everything on person, it makes looting a lot more required.

There is a point where it's just too realistic for a game to be enjoyable, too.