kooj12
commented
8 years ago This entire post pretty much sums up on how the game feels about high end loot.
Going to the NWAF to get geared is a complete waste, as BC has touched, people have already found the weapons that NWAF has to offer on the way. If this is how you want it to be, with barracks only spawning common ARs, you need to change the loot system for the lower part of the map to only spawn the civilian weapons (Lee Enfield, Mosin, Winchester etc). Then the NWAF and the northern part of the map have a purpose. Although this isn't the best idea since we have an airfield at the coast and several military camps, firestations and deerstands. So the issue presists.
I came back to play the mod a month or so after 1.8.7 was released, I hadn't played Dayz mod since 2013, and ofcourse a lot had changed since back then but ofcourse I went to the NWAF to get the pvp action it has to offer and because I knew it is one of the best places to gear up. After beeing up there exclusively for a month or so I realized it was shit. The best loot you would find is the common AR, and occasionally you would bump into a player. A good loot run at the airfield, is finding clothing. I also think Camo & Soldier clothing is way too common, you often find them, if not several of them, everytime you visit the airfield and it is almost one at every crashsite. However the Ghillie suit is well balanced. MREs are also, from time to time spawned way too many of.
Half of the time you visit the barracks they dont even have loot in them, not a single loot spawn. And this is not after logging in, but running there, have waited atleast 10 mintes at times yet loot dont spawn. Nowadays it's not often I visit the NWAF, theres no point except when I feel the thrill for pvp, and that is not certain anymore.
The time it's worth visiting the NWAF is if you are a fresh spawn with e.g. a Lee Enfield and you want to upgrade and find equipments. Then its worth the risk getting there since you don't have anything to lose and your character is 30 minutes old.
Your aspect about heli crash sites are so true. Even I do that, since they only spawn something that's worth looting. Instead of running around the map for an hour hoping to bump into someone I wait and take a break for an hour to come back when the server restarts, and I usally finds 1-2 crash sites and they dont have anything to offer most of the times except clothing that I just stash.
I've looted quite a lot of crash sites, I have been playing at night when the server has 1-5 players, and at times I've been alone and I've looted around ~5 every restart, flying in a helo and I dont find any high value rifle. I yet haven't found a DMR, SVD or any western LMG except 1x M249. Have found ~4 fnfals and 2x M14s. This is in about 4 months of playing. Although I have stashes full of them they still spawn since i got them from other players, maybe im just that unlucky. Its not that every site have been looted either, its kinda easy to tell, there's often 5-6 loot spawns and if there is a clothing left its most likely not looted.
There needs to be a place where some high end gear spawn other than heli crash sites and the only solution is the barracks. I don't think attachments and equipments is enough although it is a start but there needs to be higher caliber guns in there aswell. How about hangar? I was checking them for some time but I found nothing useful except Main Rotor Assembly, nowadays I don't even bother check them, how about throw attachments in there?
I would love to see increased spawn rate of battlerifles, they are my favorites aswell so opinion is a bit biased. I think the common ARs spawn rate is too high, since most crash sites have the damn Bizon, AKs and M16/M4. If they were decreased a bit we wouldn't just see increased battle rifles but an increasement of every gun. Although I like your arguement for battle rifles BC, that this might be the better solution. I rather have increased battle rifles than an increased of every gun. Sniper scopes in this game is kinda too good, but since the battle rifles only have CCO/Holo I think it's the better balance to just increased the spawn rate of them.
There need to be a fine line in this though, if touched too much everyone will run around with the high end gear and the beautiful era of ARs will be gone.
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Sorry, long winded post, but I just wanted to be detailed because of how I feel this is affecting the game.
I touched on this in my 1.8.7 notes in April, but wanted to bring is up again after having a few months to play the game. First, let me reiterate that I'm a big fan of how the new loot system puts less emphasis on top tier military weaponry and has put much more focus on upgrading assault rifles. I think it's a great move, but I also think some of the changes were a bit too harsh, especially the loot tables for the barracks. In 1.8.7, the barracks have become a mid-level loot spawn location. The only weapons they offer above Stary military tents is the SA58 RIS and Eastern LMGs (the latter of which hardly anyone uses). A vast majority of the time the only thing you find there is either a shotgun, an M4/M16, or an AK variant, all of which players have already come across most likely a few times in their trip from the coast to NWAF. There's a a chance of finding a good backpack, optics for assault rifles, or an LMG, but the chances of that are so slim that you have to visit the barracks a dozen or so times to happen upon one of those items.
This has had a few negative effects to the game. The first, and largest one, is that it's not really worth risking the trip to NWAF anymore. Especially as a lonewolf: why go there and risk running into a squad if all I'm going to find is most likely the same gun I looted in Cherno or Balota? While there's still some good combat at NWAF in 1.8.7, the amount of encounters has dropped quite a bit, and I've completely given up going to NWAF or the nearby mini airfield when I'm on my own because once I have an assault rifle and a good backpack there's nothing worth going there for. What used to be an end-game area ripe with sniper battles, squad fights, and tense encounters with survivors and heroes has turned into a mid-level loot area in which you occasionally run into some action.
The second effect is that the main end-game focus has been moved to heli-crash sites. This doesn't sound all that bad at first, but since they're dynamic loot spots that don't respawn loot it ends up encouraging meta-gaming just to get a good sniper rifle or some weapon attachments rather than risking engagement with hostile players at airfields. Why raid NWAF now when I can log off, wait an hour for the server reset, then log in and check the nearby crashsite spawns for fresh gear? (It reminds me of how people would log into servers right after reset in Stanalone because loot respawning wasn't working for the longest time).
Additionally, while I've never been one to complain that groups/squads are OP in DayZ Mod (I like the idea of a game that has harsh mechanics that encourage players to group up to be more effective), the ability to obtain top level gear has shifted far too much in favor of groups that have aerial transport. I know this because I've played a part in it. We'll have a group playing, hit all the barracks in the NW region of the map several times over and find nothing of real value, and instead we'll get an airplane or helicopter and wait for server reset then cover the whole map looting all of the initially spawned crash sites. Within 10 minutes we can easily loot all of the top tier weapons and gear that spawned at the start of that server cycle. If we stay in the air and keep looking for sites that spawn in during the server uptime, we can easily swoop up every bit that spawns in an entire server cycle. While the ability to do this has always existed, it wasn't so bad before when a lonewolf could make a risky run to NWAF barracks and have somewhat of a decent chance of getting his hands on an M14, M24, M40A3, or DMR. While the spawn rate of those guns were definitely too high in the barracks in previous patches, as it is now, the lonewolf doesn't have that chance at all and can only hope to find something at a heli-crash that hasn't been looted yet.
Solutions?
As a side note, it seems that the loot drop rate on battle rifles has been cut down too severely. I've been playing 1.8.7 for over four months and have yet to find a single spawned M14 on the ground (and I visit a LOT of heli-crash sites). The gun has all but been completely removed from the game if my luck is on par with what other players experience, which is a real bummer as it was a favorite among a lot of players and was a more balanced gun once it started spawning with only iron sights compared to the previous M14_CCO that spawned. I understand and appreciate the extreme rarity of items such as NVGs, and even the DMR which was one of my favorite guns but admittedly almost too powerful; but battle rifles should be a bit easier to obtain in my opinion. It's not like the M14 or FAL are as powerful as a semi-auto sniper rifle or LMG. They're 7.62 semi-auto battle rifles that spawn with iron sights and have lower capacity magazines than the assault rifles. Again, I like that the focus has been placed more on mid-tier weapons and attachments rather than everyone running around with LMGs and DMRs, but I think battle rifles should be a bit more prominent than they currently are.