Airdrops get adjusted in H1Z1’s first update

***Update***

I gotta hand it to SOE, the updates for H1Z1 are coming in hot. In addition to the update from earlier today, the developer pushed live another update this evening that contains all of the following changes:

• Changes to loot and item spawn/respawn
• Hunger and thirst vitals have been decelerated. You don't get hungry and Thirsty as fast now!
• Dew collectors and rabbit traps should function on live properly now
• Battle Royale: Some loot items we're blocked from being collected. This has been corrected.
• Battle Royale: Some messages were being spammed excessively. This has been corrected.
• Battle Royale: The contents of airdrops have been fixed and now have the appropriate BR style loot
• Battle Royale: Fixed an issue with the mysterious "crafting ingredient" bag appearing when a player dies
• Adjusted some foraging rules
• The houses in Lone Pine Development have had their placements corrected
• Fixed some areas where players were getting stuck (hardware store, shelves, etc)

The servers are just now coming back online, so expect a bit of a login jam.

***Original***

Sony Online Entertainment's newly launched post-apocalyptic, survival MMO H1Z1 received its first game update today and, as expected, airdrops have been "adjusted for balance." '

Since launching in Early Access last week, players and developers have clashed over the airdrop feature, which sees players pay real-life cash for a random drop of supplies, which to the dismay of many could sometimes contain weapons and other survival items. Thanks to some confusing verbage prior to launch, airdrops were seen as a last minute pay-to-win, money-grab by SOE, which they adamently denied. Insisting that airdrops are designed to encourage server events in which players rush to the crate and engage in an all-out brawl — like the cornucopia from The Hunger Games — the developers apologized for the misinformation and promised to adjust airdrops.

Here's what H1Z1 Senior Game Designer had to say today:

All that being said, I totally understand how what I said was at the time lying to you guys and I apologize. But please understand that's not what I was trying to do. For those of you that don't know me or understand me, know that I'm not trying to be this monster that is conniving and lying in hopes that you get tricked into buying the game. I am very passionate about making video games and I want more than anything in the world for people to love the games that I am a part of making.

The dev team loves airdrops, and in testing, every time we used one, they were highly contested where the person who actually called in the airdrop had to earn it through a gladiator style brawl. They usually weren't the one that ended up with the airdrop but no matter what, the person who called it in was satisfied with the event that they got to make happen. That event is the magic we are trying to capture with everyone. The last thing we want is it to be a boring item that someone can sneak around and quietly get to find gear without it being contested. In our opinion that is basically cheating and nobody should be able to do that.

Whether you agree with us or not, that is how we want airdrops to work. We are going to be tuning them throughout early access until we can get them to work that way, here are the first pass initial changes.

So here are the latest changes as a result of today's update.

Airdrops

1) Make the plane move slowly (53% of current) This increases the ability for other players to react to the plane coming in.

2) Make the drop fall more slowly (80% of current) This increases the ability for other players to react to the plane coming in.

3) Less accurate maximum drop radius (was 250m now 700m, so with these settings it would drop up to 700m from the calling player)

4) New minimum distance of 250m for airdrops to appear from a player. This is a little less than ½ the player density of 700m distance with 120 players on a server. Therefore more players are likely to be near the airdrop when deployed.

5) Increase the minimum number of required players to 120 (a little higher after more discussion about player density being important to keeping airdrops contested)

H1Z1 Airdrop Events and drop percentages

65% chance to call in one of these airdrops

The Caveman

• Bow 1x
• Bundle of Arrows 2x
• Torch 1x
• Waist pack 1x
• 7 Zombies

The Welder

• Wrench 1x
• Hammer 1x
• Metal Sheets 4x
• Metal Pipes 2x
• Weapon Repair Kit 1x
• 7 Zombies

The Medic

• First Aid Kits 2x
• Bandages 5x
• Cloth 6x
• Purified Water 2x
• Saline 2x
• 7 Zombies

The Demolition Man

• IED 2x
• Lighter 1x
• Landmine 1x
• Flares 2x
• Smoke Flare 2x
• Ethonol 1x
• 7 Zombies

The Builder

• Nails 20x
• Furnace 1x
• Logs 4x
• Metal Bits 10x
• Scrap Metal 10x
• Wood Axe 1x
• 7 Zombies

The Farmer

• Tamper 10x
• Corn Seeds 10x
• Wheat Seeds 10x
• Fertilizer 10x
• Purified Water 5x
• 7 Zombies

The Hiker

• Motorcycle Helmet 1x
• Military Backpack 1x
• Goggles 1x
• Binoculars 1x
• Compass 1x
• 7 Zombies

12.5 % chance to call in one of these airdrops

Life of the Party

• IED 5x
• Swizzle 20x
• Moonshine 15x
• Flare 30x
• 7 Zombies

10.0% Chance to call in this airdrop

The Hobo

• Shotgun 1x
• Shells 12x
• Moonshine 2x
• Torch 1x
• Twine 1x
• Bear Sandwich 1x
• 7 Zombies

The Lone Wolf

• Pistol 1x
• Ammo.45 14x
• Logs 2x
• Wolf Sandwich 1x
• Animal Trap 1x
• Deer Bladder 2x
• 7 Zombies

Other changes/tweaks/fixes

• Adjustments have been to the servers to better balance load.
• Fixes for some server disconnections should improve stability.
• Improvements to overall connections (G29 and G99 errors) to the game.
• Adjustments to game exit-to-desktop when disconnected (still tracking down more)
• Improvements to server selection screen
• Loot spawning in both regular and Battle Royale maps have been adjusted.
• Changes to the weather system should improve performance.
• Fixed a few servers that were set to the wrong modes
• You should no longer be able to cause bleeding on other players in the PvE servers
• Reduced some timers for crafting