Opinion on the 1.3.x updates

[LostRealist 0]

Since I'm probably more addicted to MiniDayZ than my drug of choice, I decided to come here to air my views on the two recent updates for the mobile version. This is mainly because of the terrifying dissonance they brought along between the new features, new glitches, and stuff you would have thought would be fixed or changed for sure but surprisingly wasn't. It's also a little saddening to see that the devs are apparently still working on the game but have no involvement with the community or the feedback they get here at all, but I'm gonna give it a shot.

 

So first of all, I do enjoy many of the new additions, including driveable vehicles and the addition of the hulks, at least since 1.3.3 fixed their encounter rate significantly. But what bothers me a lot is that major features where added while fixing existing issues was clearly neglected.

A huge problem that has gotten worse, if anything, are clipping issues when inside buildings. Both my char and some zeds have glitched through walls into and out of buildings countless times since 1.3.1 to the point where for a while I thought this was an intended mechanic when you're near a window but some testing revealed this is clearly not the case. I also lost a very long run recently because a bandit rifled the shit out of me through a solid wall that the game most certainly didn't let me return fire through. When you're inside a building and near a wall, sometimes zeds will detect you and attack from the other side of that wall, causing damage while you're not able to fight back. These things happened rarely before 1.3.1, now they're almost outrageously common. This can be game breaking.

 

And then what on earth is with the inventory now. I'm standing over items that don't show up in the inventory window and simply cannot be picked up, this seems to happen most frequently with firearms. I'm also trying to drag a rifle that I can see out of a pile of bandit's loot into my inventory and I can't. The weapon just cannot be dragged and it often takes multiple times of closing the inventory again, walking away from the loot and returning until it'll work - that's a new glitch, too. And while I'm on the topic, why on earth is there still no auto-stacking of stackable items? That was suggested months ago and seems like a pretty doable thing to implement with major improvement to gameplay. I would have honestly preferred to see this added over nearly every single feature that 1.3.x did add and it's a good example of what I mean with the lack of community involvment.

 

The zombie spawns also seem to have gotten broken in some places. I've seen single zeds spawn in the middle of lakes now, stuck there and revolving around themselves. The one time so far that I managed to put up a civ tent in 1.3.3, everytime I would return to it and go in, then leave it again, a flock of 4-5 mixed zeds would spawn right before my eyes, right next to my tent. "Everytime" in this case was twice because I didn't survive this happenstance the second time.

I also see single zeds spawning (often right in the dead center of a city tile) that will do nothing but turn around. They seem unable to run but can be attacked and attack you if you're in range. Mostly seems to affect military zeds. Some other zeds can get stuck in place when they attack you, replaying they attack animation over and over but not moving anymore. 1.3.3 seems to have fixed some instances of the stuck zeds but many remain.

 

The "Scout" perk was broken for me completely in 1.3.1, sometimes I wouldn't get heads-up on survivors at all, this has apparently been fixed in 1.3.3, however now I sometimes detect survivors from miles away and the icon is as saturated in color as it were if they were just offscreen. I also really do not appreciate that without the perk no icons show at all anymore, whereas before 1.3.1 there was at least a little bit of heads-up when the survivors where just outside the screen which was a lifesaver because a firearms range in this game is longer than the visible area which means that now you can get gunned down before even knowing what hit you. I realize this is most likely intended so it's something I can learn to live with.

On the topic of survivors though, I have experienced them disappearing into thin air on two occasions since 1.3.3, in both cases the survivor ran away from me behind a group of trees where I couldn't see his sprite, then somehow just vanished. My initial thought was they ran into a wolf there and got killed, but no loot is dropped there and my char will still lock aim into the direction where the survivor disappeared as if he was still there.

On another, less important note, sometimes I see loot drops by survivors in out of bounds areas of the map, like the ocean or within the forests bordering the map to the north and south.

 

Zooming when entering/leaving buildings still has major issues, by sometimes not happening at all and by somtimes turning zeds that are inside buildings completely invisible when you enter, showing only their health bar, but they are attackable and they do attack you.

 

Moving by stick can still be dangerous because the stick will sometimes lock into extreme input positions that can only be resolved by tapping at the stick wildly and having some luck. Often when I load into the game this is immediately the case so saving the game when I'm not inside a closed room can turn out a life-threatening mistake because of this glitch.

 

 

Then there's some other stuff that's been bothering me since long before 1.3.1, including sewing kits not working on all gear (hunting backpacks for example), not being able to use other people's campfires to cook meat, grenade throws generally being nothing but a gamble and, and this is probably the most annoying thing of all, needing a goddamn tent to reliably store shit, especially because once I do get a tent, I need to either deploy it right there or drop my backpack to take it to a suitable spot, then come back for my backpack to find it despawned. This mechanic makes it so that to be able to store your stuff, you essentially have to win a lottery by finding a civilian tent and because it seems to be one of those items that can spawn anywhere and isn't bound to logical spawns like military and medical gear (spawning predominantly and expectably in military installations and hospitals), you have no influence in this whatsoever. This leads to pretty much running around an island at some point over and over and over just praying for a freaking tent. There's crafting in this game, why can I not craft a tent, or just something that lets me store stuff in it so it will not despawn.

 

On the bottom line, I realize many of these issues and ideas have been posted before and ignored completely in favor of adding vehicles and new enemies and I really have a problem with a game developer not fixing existing, obvious mechanical problems before adding major new features. I'm not even going to say much about the browser version apparently being broken entirely with no developer doing something about it at all or at the very least address the reports about this in the community.

I was really happy to see there were updates coming and development of this game wasn't dead afterall, but comparing the list of additions and fixes to what wasn't added or fixed is nothing but a disappointment. It's not like the devs couldn't have been aware of the things I posted here. Yes, this is a free-to-play game with a casual base of players. Yes, there's probably not a room of 27 devs working eight-hour shifts to improve this game. But if you do work on it with intent to improve it, maybe ignoring your community feedback altogether before such a massive update isn't exactly great style. And let me make one thing clear: Don't go "well it's free so what are you expecting" on me because if you wanted me to pay for this game, I certainly would have before 1.3.1. At this point, being afraid that future updates will also ignore the player's requests and forego obviousness like auto-stacking and fixing clipping glitches, I'd be very hestant to say the least.

 

/rant

 

 

Edit: Actually there's something I want to point out here since that rant sounds very frustrated: This game is awesome. It is easily among my absolute favourite handheld-platform games ever because I love the general idea and the way the DayZ feel was implemented in such a great way for the platform. This is why I am in fact a little frustrated now - because so many opportunities to improve the game further have been passed on in the recent developments and a lot of potential is left unused. I am absolutely not here to empty a bucket of shit over the devs for fucking up or anything, I just really hate seeing great things go to waste because of poor decisions and I'm trying to help prevent this somehow. If the community disagrees with my points entirely, I'll delete them and live with that.

 

 

 

[MarcusODmaximus 2]

I liked this rant. Well thought out and detailed. Don't take my thoughts as the whole community but here goes. I believe the dev's do check these forums. They probably don't comment often because it would be against their interest, serve no point or they simply don't have time. We have to keep in mind this game as well as browser mode and even the stand alone game are all in Alpha. I don't know anything about game development but I bet it's time saving to add all the stuff you want in it then polish the bugs till it's reasonably playable. My guess is they are aware of most of the issues you have pointed out and the ones they didn't know about they now know thanks to the free bug testers. Also why waste a bunch of time time fixing all the problems. Just fix the ones the community is most concerned with. Your argument that you'd pay for this so don't give me this 'free' stuff doesn't hold up in my mind. Let's be clear, the dev's didn't make this out of the kindness in their heart. There is money to be had. Whether that takes the form of advertising in the final release or this just supports people buying the stand alone game or something else. The game isn't free but it's cheap. You can't expect much from something little resources are given to. It's probably a small team or small part-time team. The business model for this game never supported a pay model probably for economic reasons. There is no point in saying you would pay for this game to be better, that option was never on the table. Also game development probably takes a long, long time. You and me are both frustrated at how long it takes to get to the final playable version. 

 

Here's my rant. I don't go buy a movie that is half finished and watch it slowly get produced and edited. I don't buy a book one chapter at a time. Yet gamers have made it clear we will give our time and money before the finished product and help them develop it willingly. We will even pre-order with the hope the game will be everything we dreamed it will be. If we have anyone to blame for a unfinished mess of a game then look no further than your bathroom mirror. 

 

I agree whole heartedly with your last statement. You won't find me complaining about some Japanese hentai game, I could care less. The reason we take the time to gripe is because this game is so good even with the game breaking bugs. We all really hope this will live up to our expectations.