DayZ DIAF - A custom DayZ Mod I'm working on. Input appreciated!

[venthos 605]

I don't carry a second longarm; I don't need it.

But... what I do like to do is put my gun in my backpack so I can use my hatchet on the zeds. It's quick, quiet, saves on ammo, and most importantly, it's fun (imo). And I'd be willing to bet that I'm not alone.

So, what about instead of making the pack no longer able to stow a gun, making it so your entire inventory can no longer house more than one gun (not including a handgun, naturally).

Fair point with the axe. I think you're onto something with just limiting a single primary and a single sidearm regardless where it is on your character. That's really the end goal after all with that change. I'll look into if this is feasible.

[Cooto3s (DayZ) 0]

I was actually thinking the other day that some one would eventually continue developing this mod, since Rocket is busy with the stand-alone. And today, I see this beautiful thread!

So far everything looks great, but like someone said before: the CZ should be in the loot table.

I also feel like the L85 should be removed. It's pretty much a 2-3 shot sniper rifle (1-shot if you're good enough to hit the head, or if you want a sure kill, hit a leg and finish him off while he's crawling for his life) I'd have no problems with it if it only had the NV scope though. It's the thermal scope that sucks.

I personally dont play with it any more because equipped with rangefinders there is nothing that could possibly stop you, and it pretty much removes all the fears you have about someone creeping up on you. Tactics wont matter, because the person wielding the L85 will always know your coming, and shoot you down from the other side of the evergreen forest. Of course I'm not talking about urban combat here, but anyone running into a city solo with an L85 is either a moron or just kickass with the crosshair.

I fully support what you're doing here though and I will most definately be playing on this server once it's ready!

Thank you!!

[mibz0r 141]

Don't like the loot table changes you have made AT ALL, also the ALT& F4 problem whilst there is a need to stop this behavior the mechanism must be perfect or it may end up punishing players wrongly.

[venthos 605]

Cooto3s: I have similar concerns about the L85. But I guess I just want to see how many of them get into the game without hacking/duping being a factor. I like the idea of it being one of the most valued weapons for squads as long as it's the most rare and something people (if lucky to have one) will have serious reservations about risking on the battlefield as a result and potentially losing. As it stands people bring them in everywhere because of duping. I'll see how it plays out. I share your reservations, though. I'm pretty confident I'll end up putting the CZ550 (or similar) back in, I just don't want it at a farm spawn. Deer stands may be a possibility. We'll see.

Oldy1Kenobi: I expect there to be a decent amount of people who disagree with the loot changes. This mod won't be enjoyable for everyone. All I have to say to that is they are not hard changes. They are an experimental extreme to see how it affects the game so that I can tweak from there. At this point in testing I wouldn't consider any given weapon permanently removed. Still, feedback on why people want certain weapons in game would be helpful. Any thoughts?

Regarding ALT-F4 punishment, I would rather punish 100% of ALT-F4 people and have situations where I have to manually restore accidental punishments than to never have accidental punishments and have to manually punish ALT-F4 people after the damage of their ALT-F4 has been done. But, yes, the mechanic will certainly be constantly tested/tweaked to try and reduce false positives.

Thanks again everyone on the input so far. The ALT-F4 mechanic has been the major hold up so far in getting it working exactly how I want. Once that's done it's a few more bug fixes, some anti-hack stuff, and we'll see where we are from there. I'd like to have something playable/testable fairly soon.

[cwc_shadow 70]

Love the idea!

But I think it's sad to remove the snipers completly. Maybe just changing the western weapons to some russian version could already do the trick and remove the mass of snipers from the game. If there are only the CZ-550 and the Dragunov around it should be sufficient.

Maybe you could also add more russian weapons (like different AK variants ---> AK with 4x PSO) from ArmA II to it? The game takes place in Chernarus, yet a lot of weapons are from NATO/western countries. I think the feeling of DayZ would be much more "realistic" if you'd find more shotguns and "old" rifles like the Enfield than high-tech military gear like the .50 cal. rifles or M16 variants. Right now it seems 50% of the population of Chernarus had been armed to the teeth with assault rifles and sniper rifles. The firefights would get much more intense with non-high-tech guns like shotguns or hunting rifles. It's much more likely to find those weapons in civilian homes than high-tech military gear. ;)

Edited September 25, 2012 by System98

[SkrooLoose (DayZ) 143]

For the people unhappy about sniper rifles being removed, go grab the shooting range mod for A2 and spend 10 minutes with the Lee En. Set up a moving soldier at random distances. You'll find out just how easy the Lee is to use.

For what DayZ is "suppose" to be about, why does one need a sniper rifle? You can't sit back 5,6,700 meters and pick off zeds because you're too far away for them to spawn. And why would you need to be able to engage other players at that distance? At those distances they're not a threat, unless they're sniping themselves. Some will say sniper rifles are needed to provide cover for their squad mates. Why? You can still cover them with binoculars and alert them of any possible threats via voip.

Removing the sniper rifles won't break DayZ one bit. It'll merely change the play style for some. Not to mention the adrenalin rush when engaging others at a closer distance. You don't get that when you're camped out on some hill, 1000 meters from the edge of town.

Or

How about if sniper rifles are needed, why not have it so that if a player has taken up sitting idle in a spot for a set amount of time, with a certain weapon, then zeds will spawn within a set radius of him. That way he can still camp, but once he fires off that first shot then he's got to make a run for it because of the zombies.

[Alucardi 14]

Most weapons can be stored in a backpack if you dismantle them. Also you can tie an extra rifle to your backpack. meaning placing it in bag is a workaround for that.

Changing around what weapons we have would be nice. The as 50 should never bin in dayz.

Sent from my Lumia 800 using Board Express

[venthos 605]

Dismantling/tying weapons aside, there's the weight issue. I'm not about to go all ACE mod on this and put all their in-depth weight/encumber system in. I just don't think it's entirely fun to have people running around being one-man ballistics carnival. The "dismantle" mechanic is interesting, though.

---

As far as project updates, I'm up entirely later than I wanted to be tonight... but I ended up fixing something I started in on today that caused a lot of frustration. With my Arma2 scripting knowledge measurable in some short hours, it took a while to track down.

But, the Crowbar is now able to be thrown on your tool belt. Having just bitched about weight in the above paragraph, I know this seems weird to now allow a hatchet and crowbar on your toolbelt. But the crowbar being incredibly week and almost useless I think makes up for the hypocrisy ;) I think I discovered *why* Rocket didn't do this. Most of the logic is already built-in for this feature, but the pieces weren't put together. It seems that the way Rocket went about making faux magazines for melee weapons throws a wrench in BIS_fnc_vectorAdd and causes zero division errors when polling open inventory slots when the crowbar or hatchet is in your rifle inventory slot. This meant you could unbelt the crowbar AND hatchet at the same time and they'd kind of occupy the same space... although only one would work. Perhaps this is why Rocket didn't fully implement it.

With this now rectified, the crowbar/hatchet work properly in the inventory system. This should at least mean that new spawns will at least consider using the crowbar whereas before it was a garbage throwaway the second you found your first primary. It's not a "oooh ahhh" feature, but hey it's a feature. I needed a break from the headaches the combat system is giving me ;P

[mibz0r 141]

Nice of you to answer me but in it's current state I will not be playing your version.

[Speshtard 1]

I absolutely love the sound of this mod, as someone who prefers up close n' personal work I'm not too fazed about the loss of snipers. I will jump on the bandwagon regarding the M14, sure it does 8k damage, but so does the MK48, which hasn't been removed. As it stands however I think that this is definitely a mod I would play, possibly even over the original mod. Excellent work, beans for you!

[SkrooLoose (DayZ) 143]

Nice of you to answer me but in it's current state I will not be playing your version.

In your previous post, all you stated was that you didn't like his loot changes at all, yet you didn't bother to elaborate as to why.

[Alucardi 14]

Why dont you take a look in this thread: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/95195-can´t-we-get-a-little-173-teaser-please/#entry895438

My whole message got deleted somehow. I was saying as the person below me. Why cant we holster rifle. Just so we can pickup axe instead now when you have no sd weapons? I always wanted to do that when facing zombies and players around when you dont carry sd weapons.

Edited September 26, 2012 by Alucardi

[Gert-Jan 32]

is it possible to ad an option to switch the rifle and axe/crowbar to backpack?

now we have to drop our rifle to be able to wield an axe.

'move rifle to backpack, put axe in hands" something like that?

the axe is not shown hanging from the toolbelt anyway in 3rd view.

[venthos 605]

Why dont you take a look in this thread

Noooo the forums ate my reply. Gah.

Anyway, I love the way things are going in that thread. But, I don't think I've got the ArmA2 scripting experience yet to be of use to some (un)official bug fix team. I'm perfectly happy for the moment with developing my own "fork" of DayZ with mechanic tweaks/etc. in the interest of trying to foster more player interaction (and bug fixes!). It's almost in my best interest to keep bug fixes to myself so that people play on my custom mod server ;P But honestly, if someone asked me to participate in working on DayZ Mod for the community I would be happy to help.

As for the axe/crowbar thing, I *think* I'd still want the 10 slot penalty of having your weapon in a bag vs. just giving a free "shouldered weapon"slot. Not sure.. I'll think on it.

I need to get some other stuff out of the way first that I want done before I open the doors to the server. Once I feel comfortable with that, people can start playing on the box and giving me feedback.

Edited September 26, 2012 by Venthos

[Gert-Jan 32]

i have never put an assault rifle in my back pack, not even broken down to smaller components, it takes time to get it out an reasemble, and NO ONE would put an axe in a backpack (in real life/military).

if the axe is on the 'tool belt" why should it move to the back pack? because apparantly it cannot be put on the back of the character.?

why is it on the toolbelt anyway?

it would anoy me having an axe the size of my leg hanging from my hip! I'd hang it on my backpack with the sharp end AWAY from my skull and neck!

can't the rifle be put on shoulder/back?

there are military back packs sizing 40L 60L to 120L, with detachable Daypacks size 20L (Berghaus etc).

that should be enough to hang an axe or an assault rifle on the side, if game mechanics alowe that..?

even M136 AT4's are being carried on (top of) back packs, or under the upper closing straps etc.so why not an Axe or Assault rifle?

In Arma2 AR's/snipers didn't go to the backpack right? or atleast it didn't look like it in the inventory/gear menu to me.

I'd like to see some kids joining the army after playing this game... :P

thinking an AR should be put in the back pack if not needed.. :P

[venthos 605]

I'm aiming to have the server up and available for play this weekend. I'll continue to develop/test/add new stuff, but basically it should be in a form where people can start playing on it and giving me feedback and I can just release updates from there on.

Unfortunately, it's looking like it's impossible to fix the "items destroy when moving from inventory -> gear and there's no room". This appears to be entirely a function of the engine that's not exposed through ARMA2's scripting logic. This is odd since the player's inventory is quite exposed through ARMA2 scripting. This has me rethinking the strictness of "no guns in bags" simply because I can otherwise see people constantly losing weaponry to not realizing that restriction is there (and me with no way to stop it). Hmm. Crappy.

I'm also considering..

Remove: L85 entirely

Add: M24 heli crash

Add: CZ 550 deer stands

M24 clips would only spawn with the gun at a heli crash (meaning you could only get more M24 ammo from other heli crashes)

CZ 550 ammo would only spawn with the gun at the deer stand (meaning the same thing)

By keeping sniper ammo rare, I don't think I'd mind that much about putting guns in bags when sniper ammo would be incredibly prohibitive that people wouldn't snipe for recreation as much. In fact, with sniper ammo that rare it's almost necessary to allow guns in bags since otherwise no one would even pickup a sniper rifle. I chose the M24 vs. another weapon simply for its small clips. Otherwise you'd possibly get a DMR/M14 AIM with up to 60 bullets (3 DMR mags), which is a bit too much ammo for my liking when I want sniping to be a luxury.

I may consider adding some silenced weapons back in as well in similar concept (StanagSD wouldn't spawn independently, only with the gun). This would hopefully have the effect of people treating the sniper rifles and silenced weaponry with care. It also would make sense such high-end weapons and their ammo would be exceptionally rare like that anyway.

Thoughts?

[Gert-Jan 32]

so it is NOT possible: to show rifles on the back of a player and NOT have it in the Back pack?

I'm just looking at the realism in all this.. and logic..

i have never liked the option to 'open back pack" and it only shows the numbers next to the items.

there's only a noticeble difference when picking up loot.

it then shows the row with items in the back pack, wich is more logical.

and HEY?! no weapons are shown! thus not being in the back pack!

so the weapon should be visible on the character in 3rd person view,

but it's not....

[venthos 605]

It wouldn't be possible in the sense of the aesthetics. The game doesn't support having more than 1 primary, 1 launcher/backpack, and 1 handgun on your person (guns in backpacks not withstanding). To have a situation where you have two primary weapons (rifles) on you with neither of them in your backpack would mean picking between:

[1] Making all primary weapons *also* act like "Launchers" (the M136). This way you could put a rifle in the primary or secondary slot. But, this means you'd have to drop the backpack to accommodate the second rifle. Kind of self-defeating. It would show the rifle on your back, though, as you're looking for.

-or-

[2] Add an action menu item to "Store Weapon On Back". This would store your primary weapon in a internal variable for your character to indicate that you "still have it", but the game (as far it knows) would consider the weapon as no longer on your person. This would allow you to pickup another primary weapon. Since the "weapon on your back" would be stored in just an arbitrary game variable, it wouldn't show as a model on your back. But, you would be able to consistently use the action menu "Store Weapon On Back" to swap between the hidden stored primary and your active primary. The caveat with this is it gives someone the option to have 2 primaries without having to spend the 10 backpack slots. It may be more realistic to have it "on your back" (even if it wouldn't show that way in game) but it'd throw things a bit out of balance for people to have a 24 slot pack + a free primary weapon "slot".

Here's

video of what the "store weapon on back" action menu item would work like (someone has a youtube video about it, neat).

---

So to shorten my answer. It is possible to produce a mechanic like what you want through some scripting magic, but not the visuals of it (the "on your back" weapon wouldn't display on your back). But I'm not sure I'd like giving people a free additional primary weapon without having to eat the backpack slots, regardless of realism.

[Gert-Jan 32]

cool.

i'm not aiming at having 2 primary's.

just the 'on the back option".

can't you block a primary OUT the back pack?

the back packs in game are similar to what i use real life, those can hold ALOT of beans, so 24 slots is not that bad.

maybe u can slow down movement, giving food items an amount of weight, ammo can weigh ALOT so make them heavier..

i wasn't really explaining it to well i suppose.. language barriere....

at least you are thinking everything trough, hoping to see some of these ideas being send to Rocket for stand alone...

I'm curious what the ARMA 3 engine can o with this..

[DemonGroover 8836]

I think the CZ should still be in game - perhaps as the only sniper rifle. It fits the region.

Also i think you should be able to fit pistols and handguns in a backpack, but i totally agree about not being able to fit a huge rifle in one!

Good job.

[Gert-Jan 32]

Cz550 should stay indeed. NATO weapons should be gone, only regional weaponry like said above.

How many players are alowed on server?

Gonna be crowded if it works out to be good stuff!

[WalkerDown (DayZ) 296]

From someone with dozen kills per day, using 99% a sniper rifle.. i would say: remove ALL of them (including the CZ). There's no really reason to use another weapon in this game (unless you wants some thrill or wanna do rambo), it's basically a sniper vs sniper (when players has some brain), or sniper VS dead-body (when the other player isn't aware of the sniping/camping power).

I must admit that in most situation i would had to think alot more before deciding to kill someone without a sniper rifle... while know i just sit somewhere and i don't think twice before shooting at someone, because i know that he basically can only run away and he can't shot me back.. i agree it's fun, but a way TOO EASY.

I know perfectly that you may find scoped rifles in real life.. but this is a game, and those rifles are unbalancing the game.

A Lee is more than enough for our purpose...

[Alucardi 14]

I like the store weapon feature in a hidden slot. But as you say 24slot backpack then gets huge. There is a workaround. Remove the biggest packs and problem is solved. Meaning 15slot bakpack is a maximum.

Sent from my Lumia 800 using Board Express

[DubPlate 38]

Even if weapons disappear when moving to back pack I think you should keep the restriction, people are going to be launching a completely different mod won't they? So it won't be that hard to remember, I really like this feature. I'd still like to see m14 in the game also as I don't think it would cause the problems that the other snipers do. Hopefully we can try this weekend :)

Edited September 28, 2012 by DubPlate

[venthos 605]

With adding a few snipers back into the game, players kind of need to be able to bag a gun or the snipers will be totally useless. At least in the way I've put snipers back.

By this, I mean I've added in the CZ550 (Deer stands only, not a farm spawn anymore) and the M24 (heli crash only), but neither CZ550 or M24 mags spawn organically in the world. This means it's like the AS50 in stock DayZ. You get the mags you find with the gun (1 - 3, something I again modified from stock Day'z 0-3 mags) and that's all she wrote. The only way to get more mags is to find the gun spawn again and take its mags. With ammo this suitably rare (and with weapons that intentionally have small 5-bullet mags) no one would take up a sniper (max 15 shots if they got lucky on the rifle spawn) and drop their other rifle. I'm totally fine with people getting either of those snipers (quite rare) with 15 shots max and having to ration them out (I bet they won't spend those shots often in Elektro/Cherno).

So, I've restored the "gun in bags" mechanic to stock. We can always revisit it later if it shows up as a problem. I'm just particularly miffed that the code to manage/block items being eaten is within the engine itself and not exposed via the scripting language.

With that, I have some other great news.

I've finally hammered out the Anti ALT-F4 mechanic. It works as intended! If someone ALT-F4s out while "in combat" (Abort is disabled in combat to prevent accidental disconnects), they are instantly killed. Eventually this will be hooked up to http:///dayz.dieinafire.com to publicly list all combat loggings that occurred (with the side benefit of being a resource for me to consider reimbursing gear if someone claims to have had connectivity issues/etc.)

Oh, and I will be fully fixing "Study Body" as the above suggests so that it actually works.

With this hurdle out of the way, I can spend time tonight fixing the other lesser things that shouldn't pose a problem and then ideally have a public test server up 24/7 for play tomorrow afternoon/evening. The server is based out of Dallas, TX. Anyone who wants in, please PM me or email me.

(Below image is my email. In image form to try and hinder email scraping bots.)

Be sure to include your PLAYER ID (Found from the ARMA 2 main menu under the profile options to adjust your character's face). This will be a whitelist only server until I can flesh out some reasonable anti-hack solutions. The only requirement I have for access to the box is that you have at least a few posts here demonstrating you didn't just make an account solely to PM me.

I plan to have an updated changelog and additional demonstration video by tomorrow as well. I have another surprise mechanic that I think everyone is going to love using (bandits and heroes alike).

Can anyone think of any high-profile bugs that I don't yet seem aware of? I'd like to tackle those as well before initial alpha release if at all possible.

Edited September 29, 2012 by Venthos