Can someone explain this search for easymode for me?

[Tobias Solem]

I've been playing first-person shooters since there was Battlezone in the arcade halls in the 80ies, and ever since the appeal always was that there was a difficulty involved in them, a challenge - something about the first person mode made it seem realistic (well, not back in the mid-80ies, but still). Yet as it is with every decade things have become more and more efficient, and once auto-aim was a feature on all the gaming consoles I simply stopped playing first-person shooters on those and just stuck to PC-gaming. 

 

But before you sigh and think that this is yet another 3dp vs 1p-whinge, it's not. It's really about how 'easy' and 'comfortable' has become so important for popularity. You saw it in Epoch for Arma2, the servers that always had a hard time to populate were the ones where there were few vehicles, no self-bloodbagging, and first person mode, in fact; an assured way of losing your player base in any DayZ-mod (with one exception, DayZero) was to turn off 3dp, servers that did that went from full to tumbleweed simulators in a moment.

 

I am looking at this current instance of Epoch, and we are running a 3dp-server with plenty of vehicles too, because we prefer playing with and against people, because we KNOW these people will be gone if there aren't these things. "It's just more fun" is a usual comment. 

 

I speculate/assume that the devs know of this too, because vanilla Epoch for Arma2 never had self-bloodbag (for example) and definitely didn't have revive features. Easy access to weapons was/is there by default, but in general, there used to be a design where it was meant to be tough (and maybe there will be, we're in early alpha ofc.).

 

But as it was with Epoch for A2, we will soon see servers with their own "convenience"-addons like, "you spawn with a vehicle", or "you spawn with guns", or "you spawn with first aid kits, an invulnerable AI-simulated friend with player revive and player heal"... OK I'm exaggerating, my point however is that whenever these servers start implementing these "easymode" features, that's where a big bunch of the player base goes. Self-bloodbag, spawn bicycle, etc. were some of the features that if you didn't have them in DayZ-Epoch, you really needed a loyal playerbase, or they'd fuck off to another server.

 

This seems really weird to me, and somewhere I think that when it's so easy to "gear up" easily, when it's easy to heal, when the whole experience becomes easy; you stop caring about dying or losing gear and equipment, you lose the exhiliaration of being under fire, because you're not really losing anything. You'll just respawn and be geared soon. Rinse/repeat.

 

I'm pretty baffled by this, as I've never had so much fun as when there was a good balance between "fun" and "challenge", and when dying really set you back, and made you a lot more immersed into the game, and CARED more for your life, and were less prone to just "run and gun" in a situation.

 

So, when the server-files are released, I am hoping this won't be the case, somewhere I'm thinking: "Not this ime", but there's this gnawing feeling that people will have easy-mode, and that will draw the players, and anyone with vanilla, or a more difficult setting will be like CPC's hardcore-server which peaks at 22 on primetime a Sunday night but is at like 9-10 players any other time of the day. And this is BEFORE the server-files are public. 9-10 people in Altis is literally like trying to find 9-10 needles in a haystack, and it doesn't become any easier in first-person mode.

 

So why do people do this? My own answer is simply: I'd rather play in easy-mode with revive/first aid kits galore and tons of guns than spend 99% of my game time waiting for a possible conflict. What about you?

[CordIAsis]

Because there is nothing else to do but to kill. I can't talk for A3 Epoch as I still haven't played it but I can talk for the A2 mods. The zombies are absolutely appauling, the base building is insanely linear and the rewards of playing the game quickly dry up. Without anything fun and exciting left to do in the game it's time for war and when you get killed, you whine like a tit and go to another server. You keep hopping servers until you get something handed to you on a plate. Then you get a few kills and feel like a king, until you die. Then you hop server again and again until you find a server where you get everything so easily, almost for free. Then you tell your friends about that server and word spreads like wildfire. "Quick, come join this server, you start with a briefcase and a DMR.", it's hard to resist. That's when the server admins start to notice that their population is being drained by servers who offer more, for less. So they change how they do things, follow the path of the other servers and they start to get a bigger population again. The trend continues in it's perpetual cycle until all juice is squeezed from the trend and people drop it like a hot rock and move on to something new where they start a new trend.

Simply put, the attitude, for the most part, is "Why settle for less?".

[Mercules]

I don't get it either. I play DayZ not to shoot people, but for the buzz I get when I've gathered up basically what I need to survive and I am suddenly aware there is another player nearby. With no risk of death, what is the point. 

I saw this in playing RPG TT games.

Some GMs were actively antagonistic towards their players and so the players never got attached to their characters and never carried if they died because they could whip up a new "generic warrior" in about 15 minutes and be playing again. These are like the full servers where you spawn with a gun and everyone deathmatches from the moment they spawn. No one bothers to run away since it's faster to die and run back than to try and get away and heal up. 

Some GMs crafted intricate stories that the players were very much a part of. The characters were integral to the story and very carefully crafted and so if they died it would disrupt the game.  Because of that the GM would fudge dice rolls, offer up threats that were only threatening as long as the players were still beating them, and such. Players just never died or never did so permanently. I see these as more the PVE servers that offer things like base building kits and such. 

Then there is the others. The campaigns where you work very hard to get your character to where you want them but you know that the GM is wiling to let you die and the plot he has planned out go to hell because heroes rarely die quietly in their beds of old age. That moment when you are unsure if you might survive or not... if you do every time it belittles your effort, if you die every time it dulls the point, but if there is risk to all that build up you did, it makes it perfect. 


A good sandbox survival is just that. There is always a threat of dying but for it to matter you have to have actual loss not just, "Oh no I will be on the coast missing this one piece of gear I can easily get back." 

[Mercules]

 "Why settle for less?".

 

Because "Less is More". More fulfilling, more adrenaline, and more fun. 

When you can get something in 10 minutes of playing on a regular basis it loses value. Since stuff is the one thing that is more or less wiped when you die having stuff that is easy to get in 10 minutes means dying means nothing. You get different gameplay on servers where it is not as easy to get "stuff". :)

[Capwned]

No one is flaming about 1st person only in other games. But to run around 4h in a row on a 20x20km map in first person just to see the ugly ground in more details is no fun at all. You cant compare this with other pvp games or missions for arma. No one would play 3rd person on arma 3  event gaming community server.

[nedfox]

TBH, I have a different reason. Even without headbobbing I get sick in 10 minutes, trying to play in 1st person.. It always looks like your head is 1 meter above ground level and within minutes I start to feel unconfortable, and totally unaware of the area around me, where this would not happen in RL.

 

I would love to host a 1st person server since it levels the playfield a bit and obviously denies the problems coming with 3rd person views, but then I can't play on it :(

[Splin]

We played on a UG server with 1pv only but other settings are by default. Perfect experience but too small player base. If only there was 50-60 players at popular hours.

[Todd1]

3rd person makes up for the tunnel vision 1st person is..

 

Tunnel vision is no more real than looking over a wall in 3rd person

[Brez]

Too early to speculate how things will end up.

 

 

All I gotta say is servers will vary in settings so the good news is .. there will something for everyone.

 

 

On a side note I really hope the do something with the building.. The objects and mechanics which is a huge thing in Epoch are weak right now.

 

Building is probably Epoch's ace in the hole.. Right now it's more like a rabbit turd in the grass but that's because it's A3's objects and mechanics.. which, when compared to A2.. sorta blow.

[Osiris72]

I'm the opposite, I get sick in 3rd person.   I've played FPS games since the original Wolfenstien and Doom beta, before that flight sims that came on 5 1/4 floppies.

 

I have 3 screens so at least I get higher peripheral vision...but still can't see over walls lol.  If there was a 1st person only server with a descent pop I'd be on it in a second....3rd person just doesn't do it for me.  

 

Personally in a game like epoch, I don't play for the "survival" aspect but the tactical combat so I'd like to be somewhat geared quickly if I die.  Not because don't want to earn the equipment,  I don't wanna search for an hour for a pistol.  I think what they have now is a good balance with the available equipment, but there needs to be more midrange weapons to widen the drop percentage between say a 5.56 and a 50cal.  And they look to be adding some of those.

 

There are going to be players searching for what suites them and they'll wind up on servers they like.. unfortunately with the a lot of the younger crowd, they have the "I want it now" mentality.

[ToejaM]

Yeah I'm amazed the hardcore server isn't more populated but there are a few unofficial servers up.. even so, I thought we'd need more official servers tbh!

 

I know some people are worried about server wipes while servers are 'official' and don't want to 'waste their time' but as for your OP:

 

Once apon a time, someone in DayZ died..

"This sucks!" was what the blue writing tagged (Side) read

"What sucks?" came the reply from a curious server owner

"Dying and not having to do any work to get back to where I was before" the impatient corpse whined

"I can solve that, run 100m to get fully geared" a naive but honest reply popped up on the screen

"Oh man, thats just way too hard still and this other server just gives you an AS50 on spawn, I'm going there" the final nail in the coffin read.

With that one short story, DayZ and Arma were ruined to anyone who even remotely wanted some kind of challenge.

 

It is just a matter of time, the popular servers will be the ones with bambi scripts and addons, places you can easily gear up when you die and quick travel around the place. Sadly this is what will attract the big youtubers which will bring the population in tow, unless of course the server is already busy.. that alone tends to attract people. Once in a while though, a cool feature is added like snap building or crafting or something but these are almost novelties and 'extras' to the 'real' features people wanted like self bloodbag or spawn with everything to craft a bike.

 

What we need is for a 'big name' to try out hardcore and actual survival but I know they often make videos in a rush so require some 'help' or features that make it quicker for them.

 

I've always been an advocate of making people run forever when they die as a risk to dying as there isn't much else you can do, especially when people turn the loot frequency up.. what people want, is to be able to get back within 5 minutes and carry on.. and to me this doesn't make it fun, I want to know I can clear out people, loot and go away without counting in minutes I have to loot and cleanup on one hand.

[GasT]

Never really liked 3rd person before ARMA but here I just think it fits so well, I´m 35 years and also raised with 1st person. Whether you play 1st or 3rd person immersion will disapear and causality will come either way with experience.

 

I think Epoch is a bit to easy for the moment but not by much, the one shot kill weapons every where and revive is see as problems but not vehicles. Food might be a bit to easy but again not by much. To much micro management kills it in the long run for me.

 

Have played a harsher mod but it felt nice coming to Epoch where the battles where more spread out on the map and you don´t have to put your life completely into the mod in able to be compedetive with the big guns and gear.

Or if you died or logged out a long way from your friends then you had to run, meet them and more or less when everyone had meet up it was time to log in the other mod. In Epoch one or two most often find a vehicle and We meet up quite quick.

 

I began playing the other mod for the survival aspect but what has kept me hooked on ARMA is the PVP experience, the hunt and as Osiris mentions the tactical combat.

 

Personally in a game like epoch, I don't play for the "survival" aspect but the tactical combat so I'd like to be somewhat geared quickly if I die.  Not because don't want to earn the equipment,  I don't wanna search for an hour for a pistol.  I think what they have now is a good balance with the available equipment, but there needs to be more midrange weapons to widen the drop percentage between say a 5.56 and a 50cal.  And they look to be adding some of those.

 

 

+1

[d4n1ch]

Remove 3rd person mode from EPOCH forever without any options to turn it on, hardcode force mode switch to 1st person and get it over with.

[Mercules]

Personally in a game like epoch, I don't play for the "survival" aspect but the tactical combat so I'd like to be somewhat geared quickly if I die.  Not because don't want to earn the equipment,  I don't wanna search for an hour for a pistol.

There are going to be players searching for what suites them and they'll wind up on servers they like.. unfortunately with the a lot of the younger crowd, they have the "I want it now" mentality.

Um.....  :huh:

[Osiris72]

Um.....  :huh:

LOL, I meant that they want to spawn with it or walk into a house and find everything they want within minutes.  

 

By geared somewhat quickly, I mean basic stuff to defend myself...at least a pistol and maybe some clothes so I don't look like a fruit of the loom commercial. :)

[theirongiant]

 

 

I'd rather play in easy-mode with revive/first aid kits galore and tons of guns than spend 99% of my game time waiting for a possible conflict

 

This here is your problem, if you're not prepared to help build up and support a first person server then you can't really complain that no-one else is doing it on your behalf. This type of thread comes up often enough and has enough supporters that you could easily fill a hardcore server, it's just going to take someone putting the effort in to organise. You got a bunch of supportive responses here so rather than complaining about how unfair it is that hardcore isn't as popular as 'easymode' why not arrange a meetup for all these hardcore players on the best 1st person server you can find. Effort in, rewards out. You might have to suck up playing on low pop servers for a while but the thing that turns a low pop to a high pop is pop.  

[Tobias Solem]

This here is your problem, if you're not prepared to help build up and support a first person server then you can't really complain that no-one else is doing it on your behalf. This type of thread comes up often enough and has enough supporters that you could easily fill a hardcore server, it's just going to take someone putting the effort in to organise. You got a bunch of supportive responses here so rather than complaining about how unfair it is that hardcore isn't as popular as 'easymode' why not arrange a meetup for all these hardcore players on the best 1st person server you can find. Effort in, rewards out. You might have to suck up playing on low pop servers for a while but the thing that turns a low pop to a high pop is pop.  

 

We already tried it several times, first with our DayZero-FP servers, DayZero was designed to be as hardcore as it gets. Then we tried the same thing with A2Epoch, and our servers went empty. They were empty for months before we eventually realized that there weren't enough interest to merit paying hundred bucks a month + bandwidth for 5-10 players who would want to spend all day basically playing a hardcore single-player experience.

 

You say you could easily fill a hardcore server, why then is EVERY hardcore server related to Epoch on the brink of being completely empty 99% of the time? If you honestly believe YOU can make it work, please try where I, the DayZero-team and almost everyone else have failed. I implore you to make the CPC-server a paradise for hardcore players. 

[theirongiant]

I wasn't trying to knock your efforts or anyone providing a 1st person server, you're doing your bit, it was more a general point about the players themselves, they need to stop spreading themselves thin and get a bit organised, reach out to one another and group together more to play. 

[Floyd]

I relish the difficulty in gearing up. The most annoying thing, imo, is getting KOS as a relatively ungeared fresh spawn from someone I don't even see. I mainly enjoy PVE with the fear of PVP. So, I don't play soley for the PVP experience. I'd play an FPS if I wanted to do that. So making the environment difficult does not bother me.

As for 3rd vs 1st person, I am one of those that unfortunately can't play 1st person (in Arma)for very long without a lot of discomfort. 3rd person for me gets me out of that claustrophobic feeling and (for me) feels more like actuality. I don't consider 3rd person easier (as my opponent has the ability), I have to say its a physically more pleasurable experience for me.

[Mercules]

 I mainly enjoy PVE with the fear of PVP.

 I don't consider 3rd person easier (as my opponent has the ability)...

 

None of the PVE opponents have 3rd person. They have to have direct line of sight to see you. ;) 3rd person turns PVE into easy mode.

[Soren]

Why don't you just join up on a serv then ?.... Seems like theres a good bunch of you.

[Tobias Solem]

 I don't consider 3rd person easier (as my opponent has the ability), I have to say its a physically more pleasurable experience for me.

 

This here is simply false. If I stand behind a wall (for example), I can stay covered by that wall, but still see everything behind and beyond the wall in 3dp. Sure, anyone in the same situation can do that. But a person in 3dp who is coming from another direction cannot see if there is anyone behind that wall, which gives one person the advantage. In first-person view, the playing field is even because to see someone you have to have line of sight (from both perspectives) and most importantly, no one can see over or through walls if they are hiding behind them.

 

Why don't you just join up on a serv then ?.... Seems like theres a good bunch of you.

 

Not everyone lives in the same timezone.

[Xyz]

One hit kill snipers and first person only? No thanks.

 

Otherwise I hope to get atleast 6 months of gametime before the game goes "Indestructible everything, spawn with assault rifle and helicopter"

[Splin]

One hit kill snipers and first person only? No thanks.

 

You do understand, that sniping in first person only is not an easy mode as in 3pv? You cannot just lay down on a roof and wait for a person to show up then bang. You cannot observe all your surroundings sitting in a bush. You can be flanked just easy because of terrain around you. I'd say - i't more honest as for sniper as for it's target.

[lorneagle]

There are different flavors of easy mode:

1) The one that tries to allow casual gamers to enjoy the same content as hardcore gamers

2) The one that impacts the gameplay

 

As a guy who managed to spend an average of 12h/day over a span of 6 months in WoW (back in 2006), but has a job, wife and kid now with an average of 1h /day I know both sides of the medal.

Back in vanilla WoW, you weren't able to enjoy a good chunk of the end game content unless you were a student or unemployed.

 

Now things like: More cars and less expensive building materials allow casuals like me to still enjoy the full content of the game. The flip side however: People with plenty of time and a good squad will accumulate ridiculous amounts of wealth in a short time. The only way to fix this is to create appropriate resource sinks.

 

An example would be to make base upkeep grow exponentially in relation to your base size and limit the storage.

 

Things like Self-Bloodbag are of the game changing flavor: For example when I'm able to bloodbag behind a rock after being hit by a sniper and as a result being able to take another hit and escape.

 

I personally don't like the easy mode options that change the nature of the game such as ridiculous amounts of loot, self-bloodbag, being able to buy locks at Traders instead of having to farm Zeds (A2 DayZEpoch ).

 

I do like more cars so I'm able to meet with my friends faster and don't spend my 1h/day running to them just to log out.