DayZ Standalone: The Fire Extinguisher Complex
Have you ever had one of those moments where you have someone lined up in your sniper scope and realize that you can either take them out, or simply let them walk on. It was a time like this that I realized why I loved DayZ Mod so much and had put so many hours into a game that was notorious for being buggy. Those moments where you have the chance to take a player’s life and someone could be watching you contemplating the exact same thing.
There were some truly great DayZ Mods out there that made the game into something truly unique and encouraged Bohemia Interactive to take notice of what Dean Hall had accomplished with one of their games. There were even Mods of the Dayz Mod like DayZero and Breaking Point which were some of the best when looking for PvP or player interaction. All of these combined Mods gave Bohemia a collective idea of what DayZ Standalone should be.
The standalone game was meant to be Hall’s vision brought to fruition, however it fails on many fronts. Thus far I think it is safe to say that the SA has brought in a host of players who never touched the Mod and thought a sandbox shooter would be a fantastic idea. Unfortunately this host of new people is what I like to call ‘Coastal Kiddies’. These are people who never explore the massive map and instead stick around the coast hoping to knock someone out with a fire extinguisher.
Now I know I can’t dictate how people should play a sandbox game, however I can say that I know many of these people don’t even realize the fun that they are missing out on. By staying at the coast and just messing about with the crappy melee weapons most players are missing out on the entire purpose of the game. I even came across a streamer who shall remain nameless, who claimed to have played SA since release and when I mentioned Vybor, had no idea where on the map that was.
It is in my opinion the developers are at fault that people are not exploring the map, they have made it far too easy to get completely geared by sitting on the coast. I realized that the game is still in early access, however the player numbers are dropping and the majority of people that have dropped off are the players who are Northern PvPers. I have heard multiple complaints that most people are tired of putting in such an effort to test a game that doesn’t actually fix its problems.
An example of this came with the 0.57 patch, which was supposed to be a huge patch that would bring life into the Standalone again. I was excited to see the amount of content that was being added into the game, including the SVD and Winchester rifles. Unfortunately my exhilaration was short lived when I saw the myriad of bugs that had been supposedly fixed were once again present. The first bug was one I had never hoped to see again and that was being unable to aim down the sights of a gun I had picked up from another player. This bug was in months ago and has made a not so glorious return to the game. The other bug that has somehow managed to worm its way back into the game is zombies not caring that you have closed a door and just walking right on through it. While this was never a huge issue in the past because.zombies were slower and easier to deal with, it is now a huge problem because the zombies have received a significant speed boost.
I do realize that this game is an early access alpha title, however they have deterred the majority of the hardcore fanbase because they refuse to fix or change things that would make the game more of a challenge. This is going to have a huge impact on the development of the game because there are fewer and fewer people to test and experiment with new builds of the game, which is what the early access is all about.
As someone who has put more than 1100 hours into the Standalone and over 2k hours in the mod, I can safely say I am disappointed in the progress made. It’s things like this that don’t get fixed for weeks on end that drive people away from helping to test the game. On top of that, the coastal PVP has made the game no fun at all for those of us that are actually willing to explore the map and head north. In my opinion they need to focus a bit more on getting people to move around the map to find all of the gear they need to survive. The game is supposed to be about player interactions across a vast map, yet all I see are people running through Cherno, beating each other to death with fire extinguishers.
COMMENTS
azrael316 - 02:00pm, 12th July 2015
I still cant make my mind up between DayZ and H1Z1...
Foulerfire - 11:15pm, 12th July 2015 Author
H1Z1 has more of an arcade style shooting ot it with more focus on base building and whatnot, while SA and Arma 3 have a more simulator style of shooting. With the way SA is right now though I would say H1Z1 if you want less bugs, and try out Breaking Point for Arma 3 if you want a DayZ style Mod that actually works :)
Josh - 10:29pm, 12th July 2015
The standalone is dogshite purely for the melee weapons, the netcode and average server speed just aren't good enough for melee weapons to work properly, that combined with the fact that the engine was never designed with them in mind and melee combat becomes a fucking nightmare. When I last played you got an axe of some sort or you didn't bother with melee combat VS zombies and you just moved along, against players it was different because they suffered the same lag related issued you do and body shots actually do something, but zombies require a headshot, which is difficult when they rubberband around and when their actual location often has little to nothing to do with where they appeared.
Foulerfire - 11:21pm, 12th July 2015 Author
Totally agree with you Josh, the Devs just did not focus on the right things. I dont necessarily think the new engine is incapable of melee, however they are trying to put too many different thingsi n the game for the servers to keep up. Here's hoping that they can eventually realize that they are ignoring the actual important parts of the game.
SeeJayPee/RAIGPrime - 12:34am, 13th July 2015
I suggest that you stop saying that you know it's Alpha and then go on to complain about everything inherent in it being an Alpha. It's easy to back seat quarter back especially when you aren't adding anything new to the conversation. Save your critique of SA until it's 1.0, otherwise all you are doing is complaining about SA Alpha being in Alpha which no one can deny, otherwise it simply demonstrates your lack of experience with anything related to development.
I think the only valid critique here is to suggest that they allowed early access too "early" and are suffering from comunity Alpha fatigue.
Even when it is released as 1.0 I doubt you'll enjoy it, based on what I've read. Where the Mod was a combat sim with survival elements, the full release of 1.0 seems to be moving towards a survival sim with PvP elements.
Foulerfire - 02:49pm, 13th July 2015 Author
I would not consider my article as back seat quarter back as I am allowed to have an opinion about the progress they have made. The purpose of us being able to buy into an early access alpha is that the devs get to listen to our input and actually make tweaks to the game based on it. This does not seem to be the case with the DayZ devs, tons of people have cried out for a change in the way gun sway is handled, yet the dev's best response to someone asking about it was, "working as intended". I do know the way that Alpha to Beta works, however I can still say that it would seem that their focus is more on cosmetics than gun mechanics,
I do know that the game will be centrally focused on survival over pvp, however if i work for hours to get all my gear at the moment and someone starts shooting at me, i would like for the gun mechanics to work enough that i can defend myself, which at this point in time is more about luck than actual skill.
I believe that my article has some valid points for those of us that have come from the early mod days, unfortunately you dont agree with my statements, but as you say it is an alpha. I am just disappointed with the progress and responses to those who are asking for core mechanics to be changed or fixed. We dont need more pink raincoats, we need a game that we can test all of its mechanics.
azrael316 - 12:40pm, 14th July 2015
If a company makes you pay to test their game, which will be FTP when released, the OP has every right to rip it to pieces.
SeeJayPee/RAIGPrime - 08:23pm, 17th July 2015
"Makes you pay to test their game?" Interesting perspective. I didn't think you and your wallet were victims.
They told us what we were getting into over and over and over again and if you refuse to listen and then buy into the Early Access and then complain that it's early access... well, a fool and their money are easily parted, especially if the fool has no clue what they are buying.
OP has every right to do what he wants including rip it to pieces, he's just not justified in his opinion and therefore his arguments are not credible; this compromises the entire article.
I applaud OP for his first effort and think he should continue writing articles. He just needs to be held accountable for his unproven and emotional assertions, as every article should be. This isn't a blog nor a forum, he needs to back up his points, or not make them if they cannot stand up to peer scrutiny.
I wish OP the best of success on his next article (and I am being serious before I get flamed for being sarcastic).
SeeJayPee/RAIGPrime - 10:36pm, 13th July 2015
"are asking for core mechanics to be changed or fixed." - And what do you perceive as core mechanics? CLE? Working on it. Persistence? - working but pending CLE changes by region. Physics? Renderer? Or do you mean weapon sway? Something like weapon sway is predicated on a foundation involving all of the former. Because the community doesn't understand this just means that the community is naive to development.
Development happens at many levels and when cosmetic changes occur, the community perceives that as being what the devs are focusing on when in all likelihood they aren't focusing on weapon sway, or pink raincoats, but rather the more fundamental systems, like obstacles to CLE, persistence, physics, etc. things that take much more time and effort and pay dividends in the future but which can't be rolled out until they are ready. So, long gaps in fundamental releases are based on necessity but that's no reason the art department should be sitting on it's hands. And for reference, I come from the Mod as well... loved it, but once you got accustomed to it it simply became a shooter with persistence and, frankly, minimal consequences (geared in 20 isn't a big consequence if you ask me). I would rather the Devs keep their attention on the fundamentals of developing the engine, even if there are large gaps in perceived gains, because that's a ton of work that will make for a better game when it is out of Alpha and, I'm sure, the basis for future titles from BI.
"refuse to fix or change things that would make the game more of a challenge." probably because they have bigger priorities right now, about which they have been forthcoming.
"because there are fewer and fewer people to test and experiment with new builds of the game" perhaps the players realised that they don't actually want to participate in an Alpha and have decided to wait for 1.0.
At any rate, opinions are just that, but when they are based on conjecture and emotion then they aren't even very good opinions.
Belials - 05:03pm, 17th July 2015
You have over 1,100 hours and you're disappointed with the progress?
Please tell me you're kidding.
Never reading an article on this website again. You're as bad as the uninformed on /r/dayz
Kaostic - 06:13pm, 17th July 2015
Doesn't the 1,100 hours give him means to say he's disappointed? If he had 6 hours, I'd get that, but it's not like he's not given the game a chance! :P
Foulerfire - 06:34pm, 17th July 2015 Author
With 1100 hours i am entitled to expressing my opinion about the game and its progress. I am sorry you feel that way about my opinion, however you think im uninformed when I have a collective 3k hours between the mod and Standalone. I think i can say I am fairly informed about DayZ.
Belials - 07:46pm, 21st July 2015
No, it means you genuinely enjoyed the game enough to put 1,100 hours on it. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. If you had 10 hours on it and couldn't get into it, I'd accept that more.
You have 1,100 hours and you act so entitled. That's more hours than most $60 AAA titles get out of one person, and you put that on an Alpha game. You're also saying it's the Dev's fault that people don't leave the coast - yet when the CLE came out and the coast was a barren wasteland and there was no choice but to travel inland to survive, where's your opinion on that?
Are you just making this article based on 0.57 when persistence is disabled and loot is easy to find on the coast? Every new update to DayZ is going to bring good things and bad things, but we already know that 0.57s loot economy was not how it was meant to be, and it was temporary until persistence was turned back on.
As it progresses, and now that 0.58 is out, hanging out on the coast isn't so easy. There's way more going on in the north and a lot more development going on up there as well. They've been adding a lot up there and from the sounds of your article it sounds like you don't travel very far up there else you'd know of these things.
Again, early stage of the game, they've only started to give most people reason to go inland, and that reason is going to be increasong more and more. To put 1,100 hours in the game and not realize this is just asinine.