DayZ's Big 1.12 Update Changes The Way Combat Feels

DayZ's 1.12 update is live, and it's a big one. The new update introduces sweeping changes to both PVP and Player Vs Infected combat, making new playstyles and strategies more viable. The update includes changes to firearms, ammo, and protective gear, and even adds new weapons and items into the game.

Changes have been made to the way infected act, making them both deadlier and harder to damage in close melee combat. To balance that out, they are now a little slower to react to sounds, meaning it will be easier to avoid a combat situation if you're stealthy. Infected will also lose interest if they lose a target, and will no longer attack unconscious players.

Other changes will affect the way PVP combat feels, thanks to changes to weaponry and armor. A handful of new weapons have been added, including the Pioneer rifle and two new knives. Similar weapons have been differentiated so that each weapon has its own distinct advantage in combat--for example, non-automatic rifles are now stronger and more accurate than their automatic counterparts, while smaller weapons and suppressed weapons will no longer be able to be heard from a large distance.

Players will also have more chances to avoid instant death, with ballistic protective gear now making it more likely that players will be knocked down instead of instantly killed. Landmines are also no longer a one-hit kill for healthy players.

Other additions include new food items and a new agriculture system that allows players to grow food inside greenhouses, including the new food crop of potatoes (which now have to be peeled before eating).

The balancing changes and fixes made in this update are extensive, so check out the full patch notes below.

ADDED

• Variety of small food items
• Pioneer rifle
• Fange Knife
• Kukri Knife
• Sickle
• Farming Hoe
• Broom
• New action to disarm land mines with the right tool
• Tritium sights to the ATOG backup sights
• You now have to peel potatoes to make them edible
• Greenhouses can now be used for agriculture
• Flags can now be cut into rags using a knife
• Vehicle batteries are now recharged while the engine is running and consumed by the headlights
• Vehicle attachments can now be locked in place using a screwdriver (interiors) and wrench (doors)
• Tooltips for attachment slots
• Empty attachment slots are highlighted on mouse-over
• Added over 100 new error codes to the connection issues and kicks

FIXED

• Client crash related to inventory swapping
• Fixed a server error related to player-restraining
• Server error when attaching barbed wire to a base building fence
• Improved client performance when looking at a pile of items
• Items dropped inside a tree or bush would sometimes levitate
• Flash grenades would not explode if destroyed by force
• Belts would not show damaged textures when damaged
• Fixed an exploit to cancel the injured animation
• The stealth kill could be executed with a ruined weapon
• Fixed an exploit for prolonged blocking
• Cooking pots could be buried even when placed inside a stone oven
• When observed from a distance, shattered glass on an M3S appeared to be intact
• Removing items from the M3S inventory did not work properly
• It was not possible to repair the engine of the Sarka 120
• Car headlights could be switched on even if the battery was depleted
• Car headlights would continue to shine, even if the battery was destroyed
• The M3S battery could be removed while the truck was running
• The Zucchini and Leather Sewing Kit are rendered better when rotated in the inventory
• Camera clipping issues in the city police station
• The Ghillie suit and rifle wrap could not be repaired with a Sewing Kit
• Knives in attachment slots couldn't be used to interact with other items
• Placing items in a tent would cause them to sink into the ground
• Placing items in specific buildings would cause them to be spawned halfway underground
• Certain loot spawns would cause items to appear in weird positions (levitating, under tables, etc.)
• Opened doors from greenhouses appeared to be closed from a distance
• Fixed a roof collision preventing the player from entering a building
• The village bus stop had some minor clipping with the bus schedule
• The road signs at the crossing between Bor, Komarovo, and Pavlovo would give false directions
• Fixed some exploits in buildings
• Players could still connect to a server which is in the one minute period of the shutdown, resulting in a generic kick message
• The list of servers was overlapping with the filters section on some resolutions in the in-game server browser
• Mouse cursor got stuck in the centre of the screen while joining a server with the BattlEye approval message
• Blurry info text in the login/logout window
• Player would not sit down if already performing other gesture and logging off
• AI behavior sounds weren't synced for players
• Names of stairs on the base building fence were switched
• Wrong "Next part" action widget on the base building fence
• Long item names were cut off in the left bottom corner of HUD
• Emotes were not greyed out properly in the emote menu when in prone
• Equip or swap of an item in a players inventory was not always working
• A collision part of the Large Tent was scaled badly
• It was possible to destroy a garden plot
• Items would disappear inside a garden plot when dropped on top of it
• Infected or animals could get stuck mid-air when hit by a vehicle
• The damage indicator on tent doors was not showing the correct damage state
• Wrong melee impact sounds of various tools
• Blood loss effect (desaturation) could not be seen after re-logging
• Dynamic events (such as crashed helicopter) could disappear close to the player
• The player could avoid the limping animation by performing an action while in prone
• Wrong initial speed multiplier for BK43 and Magnum

CHANGED

• The warning for a full stomach will be displayed earlier before reaching the threshold for vomiting
• Rebalanced the nutrition values, inventory sizes, and how filling each edible item is
• Farming actions have been moved from plants to plant slots for easier targeting
• All plants now have different growth times (between 20-50 minutes)
• Adjusted nutrition values of horticulture vegetables according to their growth time
• Fertilizing now increases the yield of plants instead of their growth time
• Increased the chance for plant infestation
• Plants will spoil after a while when being fully grown
• Slicing a pumpkin now yields two pumpkin slices
• The worse the condition of a vegetable, the fewer seeds it will give when cut
• Unpacking seeds now spawns paper
• Rebalanced ammunition types
• The friction of bullets has been increased to make the difference between ammunition types more visible
  • Increased the penetration of high caliber ammunition
• Heavy impact rounds slow down the player and apply more shock damage
• Efficient ballistic rounds keep the speed (and therefore bullet energy and resulting damage) longer and are thus more efficient at long distance
• .380 and 5.45x39 are the weakest in their category but are found more often in the world
• Special types:
  • .22 is used by peculiar weapons (MKII that is integrally suppressed and Sporter that is an almost recoil-less precise semi-auto rifle)
  • 12 gauge rubber slug deal extreme shock damage at close range
  • 12 gauge buckshot slow down much more
• The typical speed of bullets have been adjusted to be equal to the initial speed (temporary and will be reintroduced later)
• Modern firearms require more maintenance when used
• Adjusted the audible range of firearm shots based on the caliber they use
• Increased the precision of pistols, sawed-off rifles, bolt action rifles, hunting, and sniper rifles
• 1PN51 scope has weapon iron sights allowed with some weapons
• Decreased the precision of assault rifles
• Re-adjusted air friction for bullets
• Initial speed of bullets is lower and typical speed is higher (based on min/max speed for the specific kind of bullet)
  • Initial speed is modified by weapons and is balanced to make non automatic weapons deal more damage per bullet than automatic ones
  • Damage is now correctly calculated as a proportion of impact speed over typical speed
• Heavy Impact rounds no longer deal increased shock damage, but retain this damage for longer distances
• Increased the damage of shotgun pellets
• Lowered leg health and armor against projectiles, increasing chances of a broken leg during a firefight
• Stab vest now offers less ballistic protection than the ballistic vest
• Increased durability of the all body armors
• Adjusted .357, 5.56, 9x19 and 12 gauge slug ammunition (air friction, initial speeds, penetration,...)
• Melee damage using impractical items is now weaker than fists
• Slightly increased fist damage
• Increased the damage of most tools to be more efficient than fists in combat
• Reduced blood loss from a bleeding source
• Slightly delayed the recovery from shock damage after receiving it
• Increased the chance of stunning an infected during melee combat
• Reduced the damage to gear dealt by the infected
• Infected now react less to the shots of the IJ-70 and the Sporter 22
• Players are no longer targeted by infected while unconscious
• Light melee attacks have a lower chance of staggering infected (blunt melee weapons with higher shock damage having a higher chance to stagger infected)
• Infected are now tougher in combat
• Melee attacks on infected are now more consistent in terms of the number of attacks required to take one down
• Improved efficiency of backstabbing against infected (executed with sharp weapons)
• Infected now react to players interacting with doors
• Infected react less to suppressed shots and more to louder shots
• Infected give up searching for players faster
• Reduced the efficiency of the scream of the infected
• AI is no longer taking damage from damage zones (fireplaces/barbed wire)
• Land mines can no longer be disarmed using the Bear Trap (killing the player in the process)
• Matchboxes can now be combined but not split
• When focusing on a specific part of a car/base building object etc., the name of that specific section will be displayed in the widget
• Reduced the audible range of the reload sounds by 50 percent
• When having your hands cuffed with barbed wire, struggling can now cause bleeding
• You can now choose to stop an ongoing connection attempt and connect to the currently selected server instead
• Lightning is now lighting up the environment for a bit longer
• Vehicle batteries with metal wires attached can no longer be placed in cargo
• Burning road flares can be destroyed by placing them in a fireplace
• You can only gain extra "rewards" from fishing when fishing in calm waters
• Adjusted Xmas lights on tents to be lighter on performance
• Tweaks to the display of the server browser for better readability
• Updated the credits

CENTRAL ECONOMY

• Added the 15-round SG5-K mag to the spawn (in the world and attached to the weapon)
• Increased the amount of food spawning at the spawn areas and in the center of the maps
• Reduced the amount of food spawning in high-tier areas
• Increased the spawn of .380 and 5.45x39 ammunition
• Increased the chance of weapons to spawn with magazines
• Police infected are now spawning near police cars
• Adjusted loot spawns in the greenhouses

SERVER

• Added: ServerLog [Warning] message when the server could not disconnect players in time before shutting down
• Added: ServerLog [Warning] message when there is no Shutdown message present in messages.xml
• Added: ServerLog [Shutdown] message indicating how long until next shutdown
• Added: ServerLog [Shutdown] message indicating the timing when the server saves, locks, and kicks all players
• Added: RCON messages Lock and Unlock to perform these actions on the server
• Added: Sending RCON message Kick with "-1" will kick all players from the server
• Fixed: Kick by Shutdown message now properly states that the reason is Server Shutdown in the server log
• Fixed: Changing the logout time in globals.xml had no effect on the actual timer in-game
• Fixed: Prints clogging up logs upon store load of plant base
• Fixed: It was not possible to repair tents when server had disableContainerDamage enabled
• Fixed: Server-side #lock and #unlock commands
• Tweaked: Additional engine-side checks put in place for the values of weather

MODDING

• Added: CanObstruct() check on object for commonly used obstruction checks
• Added: IsScenery() check on object to see if an object is part of terrain
• Added: GetCenter() function on object to find the center position of the object
• Added: CanBeTargetedByAI to EntityAI which decides if the Entity can be targeted by the AI passed as parameter
• Added: The attack speed of infected (multiplier) can be adjusted in GameConstants.AI_ATTACKSPEED
• Added: AI sensor multiplier can now be tweaked in PlayerConstants.AI_*
• Added: "CanBeIgnoredByDroppedItem" to object to decide if an object should be ignored when finding a place to drop an item
• Added: SetDirection to Shape
• Added: Way to specify a custom image set for the attachment or attachment category icons
• Changed: RaycastRVProxy now has an additional parameter to input an array for excluded objects
• Changed: Error messages when being kicked from the game or failing to connect to the server have been improved

KNOWN ISSUES

• Infected may be going through closed doors at certain locations. Temporary fix for the community servers is to set all attributes of building to 0 in db\economy.xml file. A proper fix will be included in an upcoming hotfix, slated for release early next week.
• The Eggsperimental Capsule is currently set to spawn on Community servers.