This was too long for discord by a few thousand characters.... so here we go...


Thoughts....

So far I have had 35 hours in the map.

I'm not holding back here... Sorry If I upset anyone...

But this is an honest review.

I'll give my most important thoughts first.

First impression....

I joined Server 4725, what did I first see... An entire town worth of loot in the air...

I heard the servers were restarted after 20 mins of the launch,

because the Hive was forgotten to be changed for the event so players were spawned in fully geared from their exp accounts.

Why was this a last minute task?
This should have been something configured over a week ago, tested, ready for the showcase.

- Movement bug: After 3 sessions, the past 2 sessions I've been actively counting,

63 yesterday, and 67 movement bugs today, each session of about 11 hours.

This is a HUGE BUG that is extremely frustrating especially for players that will be buying DayZ for the first time!!

We've had variations of this bug since at least build 1.25 (May 27, 2024) usually only seen after restart when the player quickly moves.

https://report.bistudio.com/issues/DZG-538

- Gear drops when picking up items dragged to hands.

In previous builds you can pickup an item by dragging it to your hands and your item would go back to your inventory...

In 1.30, you throw your gun on the floor to replace it with that shirt you just wanted to rip up...

Why...

- Loot Placements: Loot spawns INSIDE the flooring in almost ALL of the Takistan home mud huts...

These are the first things players see after spawning in and starting their adventure....

They look down, see an item partially poking out of the floor, but are unable to pull the item free.

This was also an issue during Sakhal in the Tisy Sakhal Garages that was not fixed until 35 days after release on github.

How was this not caught weeks ago and fixed before the streamer showcase?

I ONCE AGAIN PLEAD FOR EAR MUFFS!!!!

We thought the Bikes were loud, BUT HOLY OH MY F$%& MIGHTY, THE SANDSTORM!!!!!!!

Players will not much longer need to worry about rain being too loud or the bikes, when they have tinnitus masking all those sounds for the rest of their lives... IRL..

As a modder, I have made dirt bike helmets reduce effects volume by around 50%, PLEASE DO SOMETHING SIMILAR!!!! you don't need to make it a keybind, but please at least include a physical item we can attach to our players that is a 1x1 or 1x2 slot,
1x1 can be high tier foam earplugs, where as gun muffs (1x2) could be found in lower tiers.

Player Population:

To keep this map engaging, the player cap really needs to be between 70 and 90.

You need at least 45–55 players online just to get decent encounters, but 75–85 would likely be the sweet spot for solid gameplay.

Across 35 hours of play, I've only bumped into about 11 players total. Today, I spent 8 straight hours running solo—hearing just two distant gunshots the entire time—before finally getting dropped by the first player I saw (and I was probably their first encounter in hours, too).

When players roam for hours without seeing anyone outside of spawn, boredom sets in, and they default to KOS out of pure frustration.

Infected:

The overall zombie population feels a bit too low to pose a real threat.

On average, I’ve only run into 2 to 6 zombies in most towns, and virtually none in the areas between.

When other players were nearby, dynamic spawns kicked in slightly, but the infected were still trivial to deal with and effortless to avoid with zero risk.

To be fair, I’ve only explored the northern half down through the center so far—the south might have a higher density configured.

However, across the center and north, unless I was directly at a military base, infected were rarely on my radar for anything other than a quick source of food or meds...maybe.

Animals: Where's all the Lizards?....
I've seen like 2 rabbits, and a fox... seen a handful of sheep... aren't there supposed to be new animals?

Everything Looks The Same:

Everything is TAN... Sure there are different shaped buildings... but there is literally nothing color wise different between the buildings.

In Chernarus, we call out "The Jamaican Building" Because it has Jamaican colors...

"Green Mustache" cause its a green house that looks like it has a mustache...

I find myself looting the exact same buildings multiple times over and over because there just visually isn't anything unique.

Teammate: "The player is behind the mud hut" Yeah.....

I honestly can't think what to suggest to make this better...

The buildings are just bad for uniqueness.. Like do the people that live here not have signs or personal artifacts they decorate their homes with?

Heat: Being inside an underground area, should cool the player.

I was inside the tunnels in the North west, burning during a sand storm.

Underground Audio: Players can hear zombies through the 30 feet of dirt.

Sandstorm is heard while inside tunnels and bunkers.

Unless the player is at an entrance to these locations, they should not be able to hear anything beyond the entrance!

This has been an issue since bunkers were added to Livonia in 1.19

The sandstorm breaks immersion worse than hearing a player 30 feet through solid dirt and 10 inch cement walls!!

When I entered the palace lower levels, it seemed like the environmental audio above was muted, though I could still hear players talking.

Does the engine not have audio mixes for players voip vs environment vs sound effects?

Medical: way too much clothing vs Medical supplies.

Where's all the codeine, where's the tetra... vitamins?... Everything that is needed for survival only spawns on the zombies nearby which is usually a small chance.

Illness: I've only gotten heat stroke twice now... Dealing with a 3rd time currently...

But the player HUD is BROKEN, and has been many ways broken for a long while now!

As a DLC that will attract new players, This probably should have been a higher priority to fix before the stream preview event, where everyone is showcasing the brokenness trying to deal with a new illness while also dealing with invalid data telling them they're either ok or constantly sick when they're not!

In-Game map: This should tone down during the evening/night hours!!

Better if it's just dark grey overall always!

The TAN everything followed by the flashbang of the map, is HARD on players eyes!

The Zoom level is too zoomed in, to be useful in a meaningful way... it takes many drags to see the full map side to side at full zoom.

Please increase the level we can zoom out at least 20% more.

I love the 3D map asset but that is hard to zoom in enough to see any fine detail.

Please make an option to allow both maps useful in-game at once.

Water: I like the idea of Dynamic trucks, I have not seen a single hand crafted well yet.

During the Dev vlog about 8 months ago or so... We were under the impression wells would exist in spawn towns, and then would be harder to find once you adventure out into the world.

Having some form of static well in some of the spawn towns would be nice to get going... most community servers will not be spawning players in with a drink, we like some challenge. that also includes the well chaos.

Suggestion: Have a well with a limited supply! A small water tank that refills each restart, or on a timer as it trickle fills.

This would create a point of conflict players rush to after restart to fill their canteens before the tap runs dry.

Why is the tank on top of Medical not able to be tapped? Maybe these should be the static wells with limited supply.

Cactus: have this be like a barrel, after so many rains it contains an amount of water players can harvest, also a small amount of food nutrition.

To make it harder to obtain, make it spiky.... have that chance be like 60% chance the player gets cut if they don't have thick gloves,

No one is running this map intentionally with thick gloves! They're just too hot!

I've yet to use anything other than rag gloves!!

There is no point to any low temp gloves other than rags since surgical gloves and nbc gloves are waterproof/resistant so wetting yourself is a nerf with these items equiped....

Fruit: Figs?... Where do these spawn?
It feels like fruit spawns is disabled.. I thought this was supposed to be a region with more vegetation, even though it's going through an obvious drought, there is also obviously growth in the lands which should include fruit spawns.

Fuel sources: Gas stations... I think I've seen a total of 3 of these so far.... and I've explored about half the map...

I've heard there are more sources around the map, but I've yet to find them...

I understand fuel stations being rare in this type of world, but relying on a fuel source players can destroy with their hands makes everything hard for no reason!

-- Adding an ability to syphon from wrecks would be a good mechanic for this map, wrecks would have a very limited supply after restarts,

Have wrecks contain about 0 to 2 bottles worth of fuel in their tanks. While we're at it, syphon from drivable vehicles too!

This is all possible, I've already done it..

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3817840798

Fuel Tankers: Why can we not get fuel from these... I've found a few of these around the map, IRL people would try to crack the valves and get fuel from these tankers!

But the risks would be extremely high, since most people IRL are idiots when it comes to complex mechanical things like this...

So in the end, I guess this would be better off left as a mod instead of official but, Can we get a version of the truck and tanker models that modders can configure to be drivable or at the least add memory points to configure the existing ones, or are we left to source our own models. Having a commercial truck hauling fuel across the map to refuel a station in Nasdara city or a local town in the outskirts would be an amazing task for someone to accomplish and a hero to the locals as their fuel station runs dry!!

Pickup Truck wrecks: PLEASE include a pristine version, please we beg for new interesting vehicles!

The MultiCar (Truck01) has been in the files for forever, and would make a great base building vehicle to haul supplies across the map while limiting riders.

Bikes: I thought these were supposed to spawn and be plentiful to quickly get around the map..... I've seen 4 of them so far... 2 today with EMPTY Tanks!

Loot items: I love the regional items, but there are so many Chernarus items that feel very out of place spawning in with too high of quantities....

Sweaters... I guess it gets cold at night.... but really, who's picking this up other than to cut up for rags...

Rice, there should be a retextured version for this region, also.... why is this still and item we can not cook....

New bottles, Neat.... Can we get a smaller container, like the new juice bottle that is reusable instead of just destroy when empty, assign a small 250ml value or so...

There are so many new glass items that are one time use, that would be great to use again, Achily (I forget how this is spelled) is Visually in a resealable jar.

I want an clear jar we can put stuff in. Since we need to carry a bottle of gasoline around for the bikes, we should be able to utilize the smaller glass for fuel. just enough to drive away, but not go very far...

On another change note... Molotov's... We got many new glass bottles that we can put fuel in... why can we not stuff a rag in them and throw a fire bomb at a base...

Maybe not burn it down.. we all know how great fire works in most large scale games, but cause direct damage to a player and spawn a few fire particles that goes out quickly. There's a few mods, this one from 2024.. (Fire Overhaul & Molotov)

Loot Progression: (maybe I'm just unlucky...) I think I have found a total of 4 chlorine tablets, ZERO Cooking Pots , 1 Stove burner.... 1 canister for that burner...

Food has not been too hard, but to be fair, I've not been to Nasdara city yet. Though as a large city, I would expect food shops, even with small quantities of low calorie items.

Loot Quantity: It feels like the Takistan homes have a Max of 2 item spawning which makes them feel pointless to loot unless you're starving or in need of rags to make gloves.

I've been to a few special POIs, and each time I've left in disappointment. Each time, the server was less than 30 pop, so the likelihood of someone being there before me, is very unlikely! I would like to see more items at overall ALL POIs to make looting feel less of a chore and more of an accomplishment.

Ammo: Spawn smaller stacks, but more to be found.

Clothing: More in various states of conditions. Have a script that spawns based on the tier for the chance to be more damaged, tier 1 higher chance of worn to pristine.

Higher tiers, higher chance to be 90% damaged... or even found ruined... keep players on edge, "why is there a ruined item here....Player nearby?"

Food items: higher tier zones, have a chance of the canned food being spoiled. Food does go bad over time... not everyone is great and clearing out their cupboards before the fridge loses power... On that notes.... WHERE??? is all the dried meats the locals would be storing since they have no fridges......?

Compass: PLEASE, make a spawn tier version that's easier to find. I made this exact same comment when we tested Sakhal in 2024.

In all of the time I've spent on the map so far, I've found maybe 5 total.... With everything being TAN.... Points of reference are not really easy to come by, at least the first hundred hours or so on the map... Being lost going in circles is only fun for so long when literally everything looks the same!

Hunting Spawns: I'm guessing the cloth tents are supposed to be replacements for deer stands... I've found PLENTY of GPS units in them...., a few Longhorns, and a couple rifles....

Maybe put a few of these out around in the wasteland of the outer edges... A few more reasons for players to go hide in the hills, other than long range sniping of towns.

Clothing: I haven't made it south, But having more light weight cool clothing available so we do not need to become mummy's on this map is required!!!

Ways to be cool: Spacer Vests, or PCM vests, Evaporative Vests

Player Spawns: They seem to span the entire north, from a few km off the eastern edge.. to Why is there a spawn less than 700 meters from the dam??? Another 800m or so and you're at some decent high tier POIs, feels like at the least Tier 2, maybe Tier 3 loot!

Map Layout: The outer edges seem to be empty..... making this map smaller than Livonia in actual playing area, there is currently no reason to go out into the edges of the map...

There is a LOT of empty space on this map, that could be filled with smaller POIs for players to adventure out to.
DO NOT Make the same mistake of forgetting the Islands of Sakhal That ZERO People go to!!

BTW, I'm currently unemployed if interested, I may not be a great coder, but I know how to use google, oh and this new vibe coding thing.

Remember, You're A Beautiful Potato too.

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