Weapon (and vehicle) bans

[ISurvivedDayZAMA]

What are the plans for this? Are you going to not ban any weapons so that server owners have the greatest amount of freedom in adjusting loot tables if they want to?
Does the same thing go for vehicles?

 

[Nonov Urbizniz]

We are un-banners, and fans of freedom of choice for server owners.

We will not be taking on any bans added by Official DayZ Mod, if anything, we will un-ban more weapons and try to add weapon packs, but so far no replies from any of the weapon pack addon makers.

Vehicles are the same deal, We will be adding more but only after they have been properly modified removing radar or armor, or various other attributes we feel are "too much" for DayZ.

We also will not add any vehicles without permission, which again lol, has left us with ZERO confirmed 3rd party addon pack additions... Kind of sucks. We actually got approval for one but because of how DayZ Commander works vs how Play With Six works we can't have 2 packages out there, and we can't have the same package with those assets on both... so we can't use it.

 

[Nonov Urbizniz]

To elaborate, we are also "balancers" so for example there is discussion about lowering .50 cal ammo damage...

And we are 100 percent going to prevent any armed vehicles from spawning with ammo, IE they will need to manually loaded from looted ammo...

No more refilled ammo on restart for helis or other armed vehicles... But we plan on adding Vlodnik APC'S with dual mounted PK MG's...

So more but smarter/harder more.

 

[ISurvivedDayZAMA]

If anything, we will un-ban more weapons

That's the really the only thing that is on topic, and it is pretty brief so here are a few scenarios:
You remove weapon bans altogether.
You only ban certain miscellaneous items such as campaign items and laser designators etc.
You only unban a few more weapons.

If you choose the third scenario I would ask: why not go with the first option?

 

[Nonov Urbizniz]

That's the really the only thing that is on topic, and it is pretty brief so here are a few scenarios

How is spending 20 minutes of my time typing out a thoughtful reply with specific examples, and detailed explanations, not on topic?

Literally everything I wrote is on topic and should give you an idea of what we have in mind.... if you use some basic deduction you already know your scenario 1 is completely out of the question...

BALANCE does not involve unbanning every weapon... There aren't many more weapons too unban. so when we say we'll be unbanning some more it's pretty much all the reasonable ones left. If you have some list of specifics on your mind please feel free to list them out. I'll give your a point by point yes, no, or maybe.

We're the ONLY mod that has stated we intend on adding tanks and MG mounted APC's to our mod, if it's not clear that we are going to unban everything within a stone's throw of reasonable then I'm not sure how to make it more clear.

 

[ISurvivedDayZAMA]

How is spending 20 minutes of my time typing out a thoughtful reply with specific examples, and detailed explanations, not on topic?

>> Spending time on a reply does not make it on topic.

Literally everything I wrote is on topic and should give you an idea of what we have in mind.... if you use some basic deduction you already know your scenario 1 is completely out of the question...

>> I appreciate hearing what you have in mind, but again, just telling what you have in mind about the general weapons and vehicles does mean that it is on topic in this thread.

BALANCE does not involve unbanning every weapon... There aren't many more weapons too unban. so when we say we'll be unbanning some more it's pretty much all the reasonable ones left. If you have some list of specifics on your mind please feel free to list them out. I'll give your a point by point yes, no, or maybe.

>> I am not talking about balance here, I am talking about the specific mechanic of "banning".

We're the ONLY mod that has stated we intend on adding tanks and MG mounted APC's to our mod, if it's not clear that we are going to unban everything within a stone's throw of reasonable then I'm not sure how to make it more clear.

>> You are adding tanks and APC's, good on ya. I should rephrase my question, I guess.

Have you considered not using bans at all? What would the problem be? Hackers? And if so, would it differ from the way in which hackers currently influence gameplay?
Keep in mind that I'm not familiar with the inner workings of Arma 2 and please excuse me for this.

 

[Nonov Urbizniz]

1. Spending time on a reply does not make it on topic.

Wow, here's an idea, go be a dick somewhere else. My replies were ALL on topic, they just didn't answer the question you have inside your head you haven't bothered to ask yet.

2. I appreciate hearing what you have in mind, but again, just telling what you have in mind about the general weapons and vehicles does mean that it is on topic in this thread.

What are the plans for this? Are you going to not ban any weapons so that server owners have the greatest amount of freedom in adjusting loot tables if they want to?

Right telling you my plans is not on topic to "what are your plans for this"

3. I am not talking about balance here, I am talking about the specific mechanic of "banning".

Balance is our plan. So clearly blanket unbanning stuff without thinking if it's balanced or not would NOT be our plan WTF is so hard to understand about that? There are like 3 threads on this already. NO WE ARE NOT UNBANNING EVERYTHING.

4. You are adding tanks and APC's, good on ya. I should rephrase my question, I guess.

Have you considered not using bans at all? What would the problem be? Hackers? And if so, would it differ from the way in which hackers currently influence gameplay?
Keep in mind that I'm not familiar with the inner workings of Arma 2 and please excuse me for this.

OK, List out what you specifically want unbanned... Do you think there is some enormous library waiting to be unlocked? There isn't. If you want ALL weapons and vehicles unbanned use Rmod. That's what it's there for.

We have unbanned the KSVK, VSS, Mk17 Sniper, PK's, M8's, Exactly WHAT are you looking for us to unban we haven't already??? The only things left that we plan on banning are the remaining Scar's and Mk's maybe some of the larger MG's but again this requires fixing them first. We MAY add a rocket launcher or two but not AT or AA one's because those serve no purpose in a game with no armored vehicles.

Long Term we plan on making the vehicle and weapon tables accurate to what was on Sahrani in A1, so unbanning all vehicles or weapons is out just for that simple reason... we also won't be unbanning any of the "OP" weapons or vehicles from that list... Except in special circumstances

Equally childish but more accurate breakdown of original posts:

Your original question

What are the plans for this? Are you going to not ban any weapons so that server owners have the greatest amount of freedom in adjusting loot tables if they want to?

MY ON TOPIC ANSWER

We are un-banners, and fans of freedom of choice for server owners. We will not be taking on any bans added by Official DayZ Mod, if anything, we will un-ban more weapons and try to add weapon packs, but so far no replies from any of the weapon pack addon makers. Vehicles are the same deal, We will be adding more but only after they have been properly modified removing radar or armor, or various other attributes we feel are "too much" for DayZ.

Pretty fucking clear if you ask me, NO we are not going to unban everything. We are NOT going to use added bans by the official mod and are going to UN BAN more guns... Pretty fucking on topic.

Part two of your question

Does the same thing go for vehicles?

My Second post:

To elaborate, we are also "balancers" so for example there is discussion about lowering .50 cal ammo damage...

And we are 100 percent going to prevent any armed vehicles from spawning with ammo, IE they will need to manually loaded from looted ammo...

No more refilled ammo on restart for helis or other armed vehicles... But we plan on adding Vlodnik APC'S with dual mounted PK MG's...

Not sure how or why you'd be confused unless you're just trying to be an asshole which I've sort of assumed from the get go.

I'm beginning to understand why all the devs just stop talking.

 

[Grafzahl]

Here my 2 cents: I would also like a Map/Mod that simply doesnt use any bans, but has a default-loottable that is balanced and only uses guns and vehicles that fit the mod.

Server-Owners who like the default Style of the mod, can leave everything as it is... hackers, sure they could spawn in weapons that are unbanned but not wanted by the server owners, but there is no better way to detect those bastards then just searching for hacked gear.

I once banned all Rangefinders from my loottables, this way i could ban like 40 cheaters in 1 day

But back on the topic:

Yes, i could use RMOD, but did you try to get an rmod-server running with 40 slots? As soon as you use rmod, most of the players do no join the server anymore because they are to lazy to install/download rmod. If there would be an rmod-option in dayz commander, things would look different, but for now... rmod is no option if you dont want to be the only person on the server.

Sure, some kind of weapons and vehicles would still need to be banned, campaign based stuff like laser markers or most of the rocket launchers.... but weapons with thermal scope like the good old l85 TWS.... i would LOVE to get them into the game again, as endgame weapons... always liked the weapon because it had a shitty aim/scope, but was so great for spotting-actions.

SO: I think if you would open the mod to the max for customizations... there would be much more servers then now, server owners like to customize servers these days, and i know alot of them that use mods like celle only because it has an open philosophy of not banning shit They dont like the map at all, they only like that they can use 50 skins on there loottables and have a variance of over 100 guns.

Take my 992 Sahrani Servers... was nearly dead on start, but by adding more and more custom features and weapons that where not on the loottable but not banned, server became more and more popular.... whoever doesnt have the skills to optimize, or likes sahrani as it is... can keep everything as it is and is ready to go.

 

[Nonov Urbizniz]

all fine points, but again, we're just not going to do that. If it makes you feel any better (likely won't) I actually pushed pretty hard for this and got shut down.

what weapons did you add to DE992? I don't do the loot tables so I have no clue what's on there or not. I know We've found every gun I've listed so unsure what others could poss. be missing from the loot table.

On outright additional weapons, again I've gotten no replies from any gun pack makers so that's just a no for us. Server owners can continue to add features on top, but we can not package other people work with ours.

Regarding catering to player/host desires in order to get more servers up... I frankly have zero interest in more servers, there are 34 right now and I've never seen more than 10 ALL have over 10 players... so more servers are not needed right now. What's needed is more players.

The other thing too keep in mind is we haven't finished a lot of the back end stuff we want to do that will allow reasonable server hosts to have the same package as insane server hosts and neither one them get screwed by the mod or their players.

SO long term you MIGHT end up with what you want but it's certainly not going to be on the next or even next few updates.

*edit

I don't want to leave you with too much hope for an Rmod replacement, so I'll be clear, we will not unban all the 100pct military stuff like armored vehicles, jets, gun choppers etc. We are actually more likely to unban a laser designator than we would be to unban an MK17 Silenced Sniper rifle.

 

[Grafzahl]

I dont know what you have with your mk17 Sniper sd... It seems you never actualy tested it. It makes less damage then the VSS, its zeroing is limited to 300 Meters and the bullet traveltime is insanely high... The vintorez is much stronger and is unbanned.

Regarding the other points i will Write later... When iam not on my smartphone

 

[Nonov Urbizniz]

I like the mk17 sniper sd. I'm really on your side guys, I start and end almost every banning conversation with the group with: "Don't forget to unban jets"...

SO, trust me I'm all for more unbanning.

I don't know first hand but it certainly seems impossible that the VSS has more damage and accuracy than the MK17 sniper SD but I'll look into it.

If only there was another advocate on the Sahrani dev team ;-)

 

[Grafzahl]

Yeah, i realy dont know... seems like most of the team-members want different things then i want ^^

Most of the SD Weapons are very weak, do a lot damage, but you need to be a real pro to hit a moving target because of the bullet-traveltime. We had the MK17 SD tested on my namalsk server, and no one wanted it because it has such a long bullet traveltime, that even with zeroing its hard to hit someone. The non-silenced MK17 does the same amount of damage, has a much higher zeroing and.... nearly sounds silence for other players.... it only effects zombies.

The damage of the MK17 and Vintorez should be equal, or the vintorez makes more damage... none of both is a one-hit-wonder. I dont like jets, i dont like tanks... i like it a bit realistic. But why not more types of unarmed planes?

Regarding catering to player/host desires in order to get more servers up... I frankly have zero interest in more servers, there are 34 right now and I've never seen more than 10 ALL have over 10 players... so more servers are not needed right now. What's needed is more players.

Thats wrong Its normal that 90% of all servers are idling at 0 players. Players tend to join servers which are full and have some specials. More Servers, more specials -> More players, every server more attracts more players... if your mod has cool new weapons, vehicles and stuff like that -> more players. I mean, look at Breaking Point (dont like the mod), its buggy as hell, stitched together from 10 other dayz-mods, and people stay on the mod. And then have a look at vanilla dayz servers.... 95% of the vanilla dayz server never hit more then 10 players, and the other 5% are customized to the max...

On outright additional weapons, again I've gotten no replies from any gun pack makers so that's just a no for us. Server owners can continue to add features on top, but we can not package other people work with ours.

You realy want to take a "No answer" as a no? I mean, most of the packs are more then a year old, most of the creators are not active any more.... most of the copyrights allow you to use it on your mod.... would be a shame to not include cool stuff only because the creator of the files is to lazy or doesnt read his mails anymore.

what weapons did you add to DE992? I don't do the loot tables so I have no clue what's on there or not. I know We've found every gun I've listed so unsure what others could poss. be missing from the loot table.

The Lapua Magnum is unbanned but wasnt on any loottable... also the M4A1 Holo SD, Mk12 SPR, Silenced AK74 & Sa61 (by default, only the ammo spawns, but not the gun), i also changed the loottables a bit, the M8 is much to common for its power, also the dmr lays in every third barrack by default. I deleted the M107 and AS50 and replaced them with the lapua magnum, i increased the spawnrate of AK74-PSO and other low/medium-damage snipers... it was pretty deathmatch before i lowered the spawnrates.... even now there are 5 people online with dmrs, and i reduced the spawnrate to 25% of the original one.

Most of the players love that some of the weapons only spawn on my AI-"Sector B"-Like Island, and they have to kill the commander to loot the weapon from him...but because all the loot/weapons of the npc is random, you never know what you get Next Plan is to put a 50cal offroader on rahmadi, so landing there with a heli most of the time will be a one-way-trip

If you want, i could give you some details about the modifications on my server, i didnt make it a deathmatch-server, i made most of the weapons a lot more rare... my self-bloodbagging can kill you and gives you only a low amount of blood, tents can be packed by everyone so you can be a badass and "burn" everything you find... anti-combatlog-bots... all stuff that makes it harder to survive.

 

[Nonov Urbizniz]

Yeah, i realy dont know... seems like most of the team-members want different things then i want ^^

So only contribute or help on the bits you do want or would like to see?

Frankly though I don't think you or anyone else has any idea of what we actually have in mind. We haven't even hinted at a lot of what we're planning.

Most of the SD Weapons are very weak, do a lot damage, but you need to be a real pro to hit a moving target because of the bullet-traveltime. We had the MK17 SD tested on my namalsk server, and no one wanted it because it has such a long bullet traveltime, that even with zeroing its hard to hit someone. The non-silenced MK17 does the same amount of damage, has a much higher zeroing and.... nearly sounds silence for other players.... it only effects zombies.

The damage of the MK17 and Vintorez should be equal, or the vintorez makes more damage... none of both is a one-hit-wonder. I dont like jets, i dont like tanks... i like it a bit realistic. But why not more types of unarmed planes?

Again I like the MK17 Sniper SD and pushed for it to be unbanned, I will use your info to further attempt to convince the team it's the right decision. We are ALWAYS open to suggestion and changed decisions. We can only deal with the perspectives that are brought to our attention. I'd say if there is anything I do, do well, it's try to stir conversation.

Thats wrong Its normal that 90% of all servers are idling at 0 players. Players tend to join servers which are full and have some specials. More Servers, more specials -> More players, every server more attracts more players... if your mod has cool new weapons, vehicles and stuff like that -> more players. I mean, look at Breaking Point (dont like the mod), its buggy as hell, stitched together from 10 other dayz-mods, and people stay on the mod. And then have a look at vanilla dayz servers.... 95% of the vanilla dayz server never hit more then 10 players, and the other 5% are customized to the max...

I think breaking point had it's fun, and people will eventually greatly appreciate us sticking to our guns and only releasing features after we're sure they are intelligently implemented, and functioning properly.

Also keep in mind most of BP's popularity is due to it's including the UI modding pbo with their package. We are building that functionality into our mod, so next update should drastically change our exposure level. All the streamers who don't stream anything but BP for the UI might start giving us some more exposure.

You realy want to take a "No answer" as a no? I mean, most of the packs are more then a year old, most of the creators are not active any more.... most of the copyrights allow you to use it on your mod.... would be a shame to not include cool stuff only because the creator of the files is to lazy or doesnt read his mails anymore.

It's not a matter of want, it's a matter of following the rules. See I will get banned from both Armaholic, and Bohemia Forums if I just use peoples stuff w/o permission EVEN if I've asked and they don't reply... EVEN IF they are KNOWN to be uncontactable... Those are the rules, and we benefit WAY too much from that community to even consider risking that.

HOWEVER, having said all that, Yes, I actually do want to take the high road and not use a single thing I'm not expressly told I can. It literally makes me fucking crazy that Dean Hall hasn't given me express permission, but since it's officially 100pct BI property now I'm just going to ask them. They should likely give me the ok.

The Lapua Magnum is unbanned but wasnt on any loottable... also the M4A1 Holo SD, Mk12 SPR, Silenced AK74 & Sa61 (by default, only the ammo spawns, but not the gun), i also changed the loottables a bit, the M8 is much to common for its power, also the dmr lays in every third barrack by default. I deleted the M107 and AS50 and replaced them with the lapua magnum, i increased the spawnrate of AK74-PSO and other low/medium-damage snipers... it was pretty deathmatch before i lowered the spawnrates.... even now there are 5 people online with dmrs, and i reduced the spawnrate to 25% of the original one.

Will pass along these notes, we will not remove the AS or M107 though. We are likely going to modify the ammo and gun characteristics.

Most of the players love that some of the weapons only spawn on my AI-"Sector B"-Like Island, and they have to kill the commander to loot the weapon from him...but because all the loot/weapons of the npc is random, you never know what you get Next Plan is to put a 50cal offroader on rahmadi, so landing there with a heli most of the time will be a one-way-trip

I'm not trying to diminish your efforts, and believe me I like a lot of what you're doing, but what you don't seem to get is ideas like that (only FAR more robust) have been in the can for 5 months... we just had to wait on permissions, we're still waiting on files, and no one wanted to help while we waited for permissions to do a public release. So we didn't spend any time on it for fear of it all falling apart and being wasted efforts.

We would LOVE for you or anyone else to spend their time and efforts trying to join the conversation and find out what's planned instead of just assuming we don't have any because we haven't announced them.

No matter how much time you spend customizing your server, the things we will do in the official mod will be more jaw dropping, and more player drawing than anything you can accomplish as an external modifier.

And that's not saying anything about your abilities, it's a simple access thing, if you don't have access to the core mod you can't get anywhere near the level of detail we can when implementing features like AI and end game stuff... or zone specific spawns, features, events, clutter, vehicles, etc etc etc etc...

Believe me you don't have ANY clue what we have planned.

If you want, i could give you some details about the modifications on my server, i didnt make it a deathmatch-server, i made most of the weapons a lot more rare... my self-bloodbagging can kill you and gives you only a low amount of blood, tents can be packed by everyone so you can be a badass and "burn" everything you find... anti-combatlog-bots... all stuff that makes it harder to survive.

I'd love for you to join the convo, and the dev team as I've said multiple times. But again without you having first seen the REALLY REALLY huge list of mapped out mechanics and features we have, your contributions or suggestions might turn out to be redundant or inferior... obviously some might be MUCH better than anything we've thought of... but I don't like sitting and listening to people's ideas who aren't even willing to see or discuss ours first.

We have ideas and features for this mod that EVERY time I tell people about them they're like... HOW has no one thought of that before??!!?!

If you're not interested or whatever, then feel free to spout off whatever changes you've done or would like to see done. We will read it and go over it, but as with EVERYTHING else, without you on board, we're likely not going to use it "as is"...

 

[Nonov Urbizniz]

Most of the players love that some of the weapons only spawn on my AI-"Sector B"-Like Island, and they have to kill the commander to loot the weapon from him...but because all the loot/weapons of the npc is random, you never know what you get Next Plan is to put a 50cal offroader on rahmadi, so landing there with a heli most of the time will be a one-way-trip

If you want, i could give you some details about the modifications on my server, i didnt make it a deathmatch-server, i made most of the weapons a lot more rare... my self-bloodbagging can kill you and gives you only a low amount of blood, tents can be packed by everyone so you can be a badass and "burn" everything you find... anti-combatlog-bots... all stuff that makes it harder to survive.

Wanted to do a separate post on this because again, I feel like you have literally no idea how much more robust the ideas we have are... There will be MULTIPLE events that will be ENTIRELY impossible for anything short of 50pct of the server working together to achieve... and even then they might fail the first couple times they ALL try together... There will also be the VERY good chance that only a couple people acting intelligently might be able to stop them with sabotage.

Here is one (what we consider to be small) ideas:

Power grids - In order to restore artificial light to the server (street/house lights) players will need to repair MORE THAN ONE wheeled generators and tow it to the power substation they wish to power up. There will be a varying chance of an explosion on powering up the substation depending on how many of the generators you have repaired and connected to the grid.... You MUST keep the generators fueled... the number of generators and size of the grid will affect the strength and stability of the lights. Flickering dim lights for minimally powered grids. Bright steady lights for grids fully powered.

There will be multiple events and missions that are ONLY triggerable once power has been restored to THE ENTIRE ISLAND.

To say we have robust plans for Rahmadi, Antigua, and EACH ONE of the other islands would be the understatement of the year...

Tank Island is already built, now that the zone system is finished Seven should have some time to work with it and either this or the next release we will have an island were you can go and play with tanks and APC's but there will be NO WAY of having them leave the island and ruining normal game play on the mainlands.