I know i may be in the minority but as for 1.8 i love all the new survival aspects and depth added to the game. 1.8.1 fixed the biggest gripe i had which was skills taking way to long to level up. After playing origins and arma2 for 1,000+ hours i didn't want another grind in an already grinding game to turn me off to it like it did many others. Its not so much the work you put into it but the repetitiveness that wears on you. With PVP mode released i think that will do a good job to get some of the players back but honestly there's no going back to the old way for me. After all the thing that drew me to dayz mod years ago was surviving in a very hostile environment with limited resources. What Origins and Dayz mod have become today is what they were meant to be in the first place in my humble opinion.That being said most my suggestions will be for the survival and crafting aspect of the game.
Even if none of these ideas are used i hope it gives you devs some inspiration.
*Modular vehicle.
+A new survivor made vehicle that when found at spawn will be very bare bones. But with the correct blueprints and materials can be upgraded to suit the owners desired use and be stronger, faster and offer better defences to the driver.
+The back area behind the driver and passenger would be where the main key "feature" upgrade will be. These could be an upgrade for more storage, more passengers, a gunner position or the ability to act as a fuel truck just to name a few.
+The front area can consist of two upgradeable areas, the engine and the bumper. The bumpers can all act the same with the only difference being cosmetic to suit the owner. The engine upgrades would be pretty straight forward, just making it go faster.
+All the cabin upgrades to protect the driver and wheels can just be handled the same as they are now with the vehicle reinforcements.
+Maybe add in a few more upgrades just for fun like an air horn or additional lights.
*Saddlebags for motorcycles to increase storage capacity. Something for the atv would be cool also.
*Craftable wood storage box. Need a hammer, saw, 5 short planks, 2 scrap metal. Non lockable boxes that have about the same storage as a tent. Maybe have a upgrade to put a lock on it but have the lock somewhat easy to break. It would be great if anyone who knew the code to it could unlock it.
*Randomly spawning wild plants you can harvest that can be used to craft powerful medicines and drugs. This can go beyond just the medical items currently used in the game. With the right plants and knowledge (because im a sucker for the skill system) you can craft drugs that let you carry more weight or be less prone to falling unconscious. Just as an example recipe, empty whisky bottle+mineral water+taviana wild flower= a drink that lets you take more damage before falling unconscious and shortens the length of it for a period of time.
*New player made boathouse to act as a garage for your boat. I would honestly forfeit the ability to build a small garage to have a boathouse.
*Stencils for clothing items. Plus using spray cans to paint clothes different colors.
*The ability to cut clothes into cloth. Drives me crazy having all these clothes and needing cloth. Makes sense since i can cut cloth from the clothing zombies wear.
*Make it possible to pack up your safe and move it to a new location.
*Add loot spawns to the oil rigs at the oil fields. Seems like it should be a good spot to find jerry cans, tools and hydraulic pipes.
*similiar to heli crashes have car and boat crash sites. Heli crash sites should remain the best ones to loot followed by the car and the boat being the lowest tier.
*Add more points of interest around the Seven area.
+Maybe some sort of POW or internment camp from the war between taviana and novistrana. Rumor has it one of the prisioners was in posession of a valuable relic from novistrana he hid in the camp to keep the guards and Taviana government from finding it.
+Big junkyard with a few lootable sheds and buildings.
*A few caves around the map to explore.
+Maybe open up the railroad tunnel by Molotovosk for one of them.
+Missile silos that can be searched and looted
*Fix the ammo bug where it refills your mags on log out and when locking them in houses. Instead make a system when you deplete your magazine it stays in your inventory as an empty mag. Ammo in all the different calibers would be added to the loot tables to refill your empty magazines with. For example AKM mags may be harder to find but the ammo to fill them is as common as the mags were before adding this new system. So instead of finding makarov mags in every other trash pile you will just find the ammo with the occasional mag.
Of course some ammo in the game is fed by clip or loose ammo and those will not be affected. Such ammo includes
+Mosin clip
+Cz550
+M24
+Lee Enfield
+Shotguns that are not mag fed
*Remove gama slider in the settings so there is actually a need for NVGs and weapons with lights on them.(admins choice)
*Craftable explosives
+Empty whisky bottle-gas-cloth=Molotov cocktail
(Not sure how arma2 would do fire damage or it could just be a weaker explosion than the grenade. Must have matches on toolbelt to light and throw)
+IED made from grenades, computer chips and a radio. Must have second radio to detonate.
+Improvised frag grenades
*More incentive to stay alive and value your characters life. Some kind of passive perk system to make you more resilient to diseases or not bleed out as fast.
*Armed choppers(and cars) spawn with no ammo. If everything else is in that much disrepair on it there is very little chance the ammo would still be good or had not been salvaged by survivors.
*Upgrades you can do to the existing houses. Like painting, adding objects, decorations, lighting or anything that will make your house feel unique and personalized.
* Interior features would be great and make your house feel like more than just a place to dump your loot. make some standard and some upgrades.
+Functional stove
+Chemistry station that generates a random medical item every restart
+Dresser to store clothing for the new upcoming clothing system
+Make the mailboxes work so you can leave people hate mail
+Periscope that you can look around outside with(a bit silly but useful).
+Gun rack on the wall that lets your store 1 gun on it and it will show the gun on it. So you can show off your prized gun or just put your go to weapon on it for fast access.
*Add animal hide to craft clothing and items from. Possibly even leather tanning to make more advanced clothing and items.
*(If not already being worked on)Clothing upgrades would be cool.
*Craftable armor(armor being a very loose term)
+ Tier 1 - Hide(Very light weight and only effective against zombie bites and scratches)
+Tier 2 - Tin(More effective against bites and scratches with a light resistance to melee weapons)
+Tier 3 - Scrap(Even more effective against zombies with a slight resistance to low caliber handguns and smgs. You may get a little hot if running long distances in this.)
+Tier 4 - Reinforced(This armor will be hot to wear and very heavy but offer great protection against zombies and slight protection against bullets.)
Just a few examples off the cuff.
*Add bait for hunting. Once bait is set, every minute there will be a chance for an animal to spawn and head to the bait.
*Expand upon the nutrition system. Have a bar or meter for total health. The more you eat better foods and drinks and not take damage the higher the bar will get. As it fills up you get a bonus to stamina and have to eat less often to maintain good health.
*Im sure you guys are already working on it, but a weapon attachment system would be great.
*True survivor made vehicles like ive suggested in the past. The pbx and bike should just be the start of expanding this concept.
+Maybe a small zeppelin made from rolls of rubber, bike frame and other various parts. And powered by peddling like a bike to turn the prop to go forward and back.
*At the iron mine let us mine iron ore that can be smelted into scap metal or reinforcing material.
*The ability to mine rocks from all the boulders around the map. Make it as slow to harvest as long planks with a very high chance to break the pick.
*Add more freshwater ponds around the map.
*Finish the fishing system. I see fish at the trader and assume this feature is partially complete.
*Farming.
+Corn
+Sugar
+Cotton
*More items and features for base building.
+Still for making alcohol that can be used for multiple purposes. Made with corn and sugar from the aforementioned farming and poured into an empty whisky bottle.
+lights
+Sterile medical tent
+Fire barrels
+tank traps and sandbags that stay after restart if placed within X meters from owned houses, walls and towers.
+Cotton Gin for making cloth from cotton grown via farming.
+Different models and options for upgraded walls.
+Generator for smelting, lighting and other things.
+Miscellaneous objects like epoch has for fortifications or just decoration
*Rework the amount of meat gutted from animals using the hunting knife and add a field butchers kit like hunters use for harvesting meat in the field. Using the kit instead of the knife will yeild more meat and possibly other items like hide if implemented. And possibly make zombie parts easier to harvest using the butcher kit over the knife. It can be rare to find in the meat markets and on the new butcher zombie.
*With the new clothing system opening up a lot of opportunities i would like to see it fully expanded upon. A skill system for crafting clothing and bags can be one of the ways. The more you read books and progress down the tree the better and more useful stuff you can make. And of course there would have to be additional support items added to the game like sewing kits and thread that can be crafted from cloth(once you read the book
).
+Kevlar woven clothing from all those kevlar pads i find in police stations now.
+animal hide pack in multiple sizes pending on clothing crafting skill.
+Padded shoes for all of my sneaky bandit friends.
+Insulation added to existing clothes to resist the cold.
*Make parachutes an item that can be found at airfields. It still haunts me to think where my character is storing all his parachutes
*Floating fortress. Like the flying fortress but well... floating
*Option in origins launcher to see what settings a server has like bot difficulty, locks and trader options.
*A shirt that says ISP on it
Just a few ideas. More to come