I have seen a few people post what their perfect standalone version of the game is, so I decided to follow and do my own.

[KEEPCARLM 146]

Before I write on, I am only going to concentrate on the things that I feel are within a reasonable scope of what rocket and his team are capable of achieving, I don’t see any reason to start suggesting ludicrous ideas that Bill Gates himself couldn’t implement. After playing DayZ for a while now, you start to learn what the mod is capable of and what workarounds Rocket has had to use in order to make even some seemingly simple additions, for example; the game thinks the hatchet is a gun. That being said, I do recognise that in becoming a standalone game it will be far more accessible and as a result perhaps we will start to see more ambitious and original implementations that before wouldn’t have been possible using the Arma 2 engine.

This is probably going to be a long post (slow day at work haha), but I will try to keep things ordered logically and concise, I’m not as prone to rambling as I was in my youth, this is in part due to University word limits on essays forcing me to be concise and to the point, did you know, that in 1904 the University of Oxford introduced…. Kidding! I shall move on.

I am of the opinion that, if you base a lot of small details on the reality of the situation, the game will piece together and all-in-all will provide a higher sense of authenticity, just through minor details that make sense. I’m not saying we need a stupidly realistic shooting mechanism, and adding all these wind factors and stuff into the game, just small details.

‘confirmed kills and zombie kills’

I can’t be the only person that likes to be able to keep track of all the things I do in the game, in many ways it’s pretty much the only thing to keep you occupied. I mean, it’s a trivial reason to kill zombies for, but it’s at least A REASON, to get that count higher. Now, if you remove the zombie kill count you just end up running from zombies rather than face them, I know the main aim is to ‘survive’ the zombies, but the reality is, I want some kind of a track on how many I have killed. It doesn’t have to be really obvious and written in the top of my screen, but perhaps a ‘stats’ book type thing – basically a Journal that tracks it (Which ideally others could pick off your dead body).

This brings me onto the other point, bandit kills and murders. Obviously the kill count in its current state has to go, as in reality if you shot someone you wouldn’t know for sure if they was dead until you checked. Well. The game has a built in pulse checking mechanism already, so why not make it so you can confirm kills by running up to the dead body of the person you shot and checking they are dead. You wouldn’t be able to claim kills that are not yours, and you would have to deal the last blow. This will make sniping fresh spawns to get your kill count up less ‘inviting’. This would also make people much more uneasy about dealing with the bodies of the dead, you can’t just kill someone and loot the body whilst humming. You will have to make sure they’re dead. Otherwise when you get close, you may get shot by someone playing dead. This way, you get to keep the kill count there, without making it obvious you got the kill. Only when the kill is confirmed by the killer will it appear in the chat feed (Although this is debateable) and in your records.

Additions…

‘Hunting Shop’

I personally think there should be some kind of hunting shop situated in Cherno and Elektro and Berezino. The shop, naturally would have been raided already but these shops will be good for finding the odd .22 rifle, various bits and pieces of ammo such as shotgun slugs/shells, small arms ammo, camping tents, water bottles, maps, compass, small gas camping stove

‘Items’

Raincoats, should be available to help your character stay warm in the rain.

Gas Stove, should be available to cook food, just as an alternative to make a wood pile

Head-Torch, so you can light the area you are looking at and carry weapons

Walkie-Talkie, long range communication

‘Logical Weapons ‘

At the moment, I feel everything is all a bit mish-mash at the moment with regards to where you find your guns, I mean, I found an M14 AIM in a fire station once. What is up with that? I like the idea of crash sites, I think that is something which could be built on. One of the big aspects of a loot driven game is to have a lot of variation, people need to have different gear, at different levels of rarity. I think, on the base map, with it being set in Czech Republic, you should just find Czech weapons, in both Police form, Military form and household form. These guns are fine for killing things, but they’re not particularly interesting, or, brag worthy. This is where crash sites come into play. Most people get at least a little bit happy when they find a crash site, as this is a chance to find a rare item. So why not build on this idea, why not treat the crash sites as if it was sent from another nation to help prevent the outbreak.

I propose the following variations in what weapons you can find.

Czech Republic (around the town, and bases)

Police Weapons

‘CZ-75’ Pistol, ‘CZ 97B’ Pistol.

‘VZ Skorpion’ SMG

‘Sa vz. 58’ Carbine/Assault Rifle

‘CZ-700’ sniper rifle

Army Weapons

‘M60’, ‘UK vz. 59’ (LMG)

‘CZ Bren 805’, ‘Sa vz. 58’, ‘M4A1’ (Assault rifles)

‘MP5’, ‘skorpion’, (SMG)

‘Dragunov SVD’, ‘Sako TRG’, ‘CZ-700’ (sniper Rifles)

CZ pistols, Glock (pistols)

American Crashed Helicopter

‘M9’, ‘M11’ (handguns)

‘M16A4’, ‘M14’, ‘SCAR-L’, ‘M4 variants’ (Assault Rifles, Carbines)

‘MP5’, ‘MP7’, (SMG)

‘M249’, ‘MK48’ (LMG)

‘M24’, ‘M40’, (sniper rifles)

‘M500’, ‘M1014’ (shotguns)

British Crashed Helicopter

‘L9A1’, ‘P226’ (handguns)

‘L85A2’, ‘HK417’ (Assault)

‘L86A2’ (LMG)

‘L129A1’, ‘AW/M (L96)’, ‘L115A3’ (sniper rifle)

German Crashed Helicopter

‘P8’ (handgun)

‘G36’, ‘G3’ (Assault)

‘MP7’, ‘MP2’ (SMG)

‘MG4’ (LMG)

‘Remington 870’ (shotgun)

Russian Crashed Helicopter (most common crash site)

‘Makarov’, ‘MP-443’, ‘PB’ (handguns)

‘AK-74u’, ‘AK-74M’, ‘AKM’, ‘AN-94’, ‘AS VAL’ (Assault Rifles)

‘PP19 Bizon’ (SMG)

‘RPK’, PKM (LMG)

‘Dragunov SVD’, Dragunov SVU’, ‘VSS’, ‘SV-98’ (sniper),

Special forces crashed helicopter (extremely rare)

‘Silenced M9’, ‘Welrod’ (handgun)

‘Steyr TMP’, ‘MAC-11’ (SMG)

‘M4 CAMO SD’, ‘M14 w/ red dot’, ‘G36 (silenced)’ ‘Steyr AUG’,’ C8’ (Assault)

‘M240’, ‘M249’ (LMG)

‘AS-50’ (anti material sniper rifle)

‘MK12 Mod O SPR’, ‘M24A2 SWS’ (sniper rifles)

To avoid confusion, this is how I picture this in my head.

There will be 1-2 crash sites per server, there will be a high chance of one of these crash sites being Russian, and a low chance of it being Special forces based.

So, let’s say a server has 2 crashsites, one Russian and one American. The Russian crash site will have common guns (FOR A CRASHSITE) so whilst I am saying that an AKM is now crash site only, it’s still common in comparison to the AN-94 which has a much lower chance of spawning at the Russian crash site. The American side of things, the M16 will be more likely to spawn at the crash site than an M40.

Basically there will be weapons that spawn rarely at rare crash sites, so let’s say there’s a 1/100 chance of a special forces heli spawning, there will then be a 1/100 chance of an AS-50 spawning, so the odds of finding these weapons are extremely low. Without duping, or hackers bringing the guns in, you would hardly ever come across someone with such rare weapons. In doing this, the AK’s which we find commonly now and are a standard rifle will actually become fairly rare and wanted.

So, each crash site variant will have a scale of rarity on the possible guns that can spawn, the L85(standard sights, not thermal) will be common for British, M16A4 common for US however the crash site itself will be rare.

***NOTE***

I have based these weapons lists on WIKIPEDIA, they may not be accurate.

That is a lot of weapons, I know – and that’s not including the hunting weapons and household pistols (basically I have no idea what would be found, or what hunting weapons exist, but let’s say a couple of handguns, rifles and shotguns so about 6-7). But you have to remember one of the game’s biggest pulls at the moment is finding nice loot, If these weapons were scaled nicely in rarity, for example maybe 1 person out of 1000 will have something from a spec ops crash site, it will be that rare) it will allow people to always be on the lookout for new stuff, and whilst IMO that wouldn’t be the first worry in a zombie apocalypse scenario, at least for me, I do think as a game, it needs something there to make people get excited.

I would also propose a slight change in the way the crash sites work. The zombies that spawn will be wearing their respective nations army attire, and if you want the ammo for the gun you just found at the crash site, you will need to kill the zombies and take it from them. No more hiding 50 meters away and waiting for the zombies to walk off, if you want something from the crash site, you’re going to have to put some work into obtaining it. This also makes character building essential, no more heading straight inland from the coast to find crash sites, you won’t be able to benefit from a crash site without having stuff to protect yourself when you find one. Give people a reason to actually interact with zombies. I think also, it would be nice if you could find the pistols on the zombies, not EVERY zombie, but at least some of them and maybe even combat knives etc too.

I think more unique places should exist for finding weapons as at the moment you just go in buildings, police weapons for example could be found at police cars on the streets in the towns, with police zombies spawning around them. Maybe you can find shotguns and rifles in the boot (trunk) of the car, or just around the outside of it, then find certain pistols etc on the police zombies inventory. I feel this will also help with any narrative, as it will imply the police died trying to defend themselves and their town.

Maybe there could be some camping tents in the woods where zombies spawn, tents from where previous survivors were hiding but they are now infected, or simply where someone was on a camping trip during the outbreak, thus bringing zombies into the forests. Maybe these campsites could spawn hunting equipment too, have a wood pile readily built up and generally just bring something at least a little interesting in what normally is just trees. Surely people want the place to feel as though it’s been abandoned, like it was a normal day and now everyone is gone but their possessions remain.

‘Weapons Carrying and use’

Basically, I believe every player should be unique and have different things, I don’t want every players inventory to be the same, there needs to be variation, decisions to make on what to carry. Right now you can, for some reason shove a huge anti-material rifle into your backpack, I don’t think I need to point out to anyone that, this isn’t a possibility in reality, I mean you could put a small gun in there, but nothing large. So SMGs and pistols, basically. Now, ideally there would be a weight system – but this isn’t essential to me. I think a change in the way you carry weapons should change however.

First of all, if you have a sniper rifle, it should always be visible on your back, unless in your hands. Infact, any weapon not in use your character has, should be visible. Obviously this means it’s not taking up space in a backpack, so either we limit it to 1 primary and 1 secondary, 2 primary weapons, or allow 2 primary (1 on back, 1 in hand) and a sidearm (holster), obviously the latter would require on occasion for both primary weapons to be slung on the back.

My preference would be to have 1 primary, and 1 secondary. HOWEVER, the secondary weapon can be either a handgun, an SMG or shotgun. This way, finding a good SMG is actually GOOD, at the moment, there is no use for SMGs unless you have no other choice. Therefore a person who prefers to snipe will be limited in firepower at close-medium range. How it should be, right? I shouldn’t be able to switch from an AS50 to an M4 likes it nothing.

I think that should just about conclude it.

TL;DR

A change in how crashed helicopters work

Some new items and lootable shops that make sense

A change in how weapons are carried

More realistic placement of items

More scenes around the map that show a struggled attempt at stopping the infection

[pidian 19]

some pretty cool ideas, i especially like the concept of having to inspect a body to actually confirm a kill and have it "count" towards your numbers.

[twinturbonet (DayZ) 294]

Valid points.

[ACOGshot 38]

Very good post. I liked your ideas!

[Doctor_sloth 119]

I think the idea of a "journal" is superb. Perhaps there could be a special "leg bag" that only holds journals, so that when you do take someone out you could hold onto their journal as a keepsake of sorts. Or it could just record the player name in your journal when you confirm the kill. It's similar to a "dogtag" suggestion I've heard before, but I like your idea of a journal better.

As far as the helicopter crash suggestion, I think you just hit the nail on the head. Forgive me if I missed it, but the only thing I could think to add would be the zombies would wear the nations' uniform to make identifying crash sites easier. The only issue with that is the "special forces" soldiers wouldn't really have any particular uniform, but I suppose the lack of a uniform would be just as telling.

Overall, these are really good ideas and it's apparent that you've thought these through so congrats on that. We need more posts like these in the forums, and this one definitely needs to be read and discussed.

[KEEPCARLM 146]

I think the idea of a "journal" is superb. Perhaps there could be a special "leg bag" that only holds journals, so that when you do take someone out you could hold onto their journal as a keepsake of sorts. Or it could just record the player name in your journal when you confirm the kill. It's similar to a "dogtag" suggestion I've heard before, but I like your idea of a journal better.

As far as the helicopter crash suggestion, I think you just hit the nail on the head. Forgive me if I missed it, but the only thing I could think to add would be the zombies would wear the nations' uniform to make identifying crash sites easier. The only issue with that is the "special forces" soldiers wouldn't really have any particular uniform, but I suppose the lack of a uniform would be just as telling.

Overall, these are really good ideas and it's apparent that you've thought these through so congrats on that. We need more posts like these in the forums, and this one definitely needs to be read and discussed.

Thanks, and yeah I did mention that here

"I would also propose a slight change in the way the crash sites work. The zombies that spawn will be wearing their respective nations army attire"

[Spycrab 5]

Good ideas, also when player(s) take all the items from a crash site, the empty helicopter should blow up, and a new crash site should appear somewhere else?

[deadlykenny 37]

As this is taking up another thread in the forums, i would suggest you post it in the right place: Here

[apache25 133]

i already suggested the gas stove idea but overall good ideas

[wisteria 0]

Good idea, it is good if it can be achieved !

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[DemonGroover 8836]

I like the idea of confirming kills - it would definitely change the way snipers operate.

The inventory has bugged me for a while and being able to shove huge guns into an ALICE pack does seem absurd. To me you should have a primary (always visible) a small secondary and possibly a melee weapon which also would be visible.

I also like the idea of rare military weapons being made rarer still and do like your suggestion of different types of heli crashes.

One thing i would like implemented in the standalone are the loot positions - do they always have to be on the floor. Cant you find food on tables, cupboards and guns on racks. Seeing that stack of AK's in the Balota medical tents always pisses me off!!

[apache25 133]

correction you dont put the weapons in the backpack you have them on a strap

[KEEPCARLM 146]

correction you dont put the weapons in the backpack you have them on a strap

um... yeah, but you also put one in your pack.

[Undrun SIgna 4]

um... yeah, but you also put one in your pack.

Correction, The game UI says you put the gun in your pack (unless you have two primaries, then i understand what your getting at) but when you put just one and only one in your pack, the character as it slung over his/her shoulder... i can understand putting a smg/pistol/pdw into a Alice pack, but an LMG? come on game...

Edited September 13, 2012 by Undrun SIgna