Tracking players using a mushroom in DayZ 

If someone is bloodthirsty enough to track someone via mushrooms and fruit there's nothing the devs can do , these people are just wild animals that cannot be stopped

This has to be peak DayZ . Using clouds to find your bearings ? Weak , using stars and moon to travel correctly ? Weak , using mushrooms to find other players that's the way to go .

What I expected tracking players in DayZ to be like : Looking carefully for footprints in dirt paths, noticing that by the footprint, it looks like military boots, so the guy must be armed, giving lots of information not only about where he went but also what to expect before even seeing him Reality : These mushrooms look kinda fresh, someone must be here.

I actually kinda like this tbh, Its kind of a version in game of tracking someone in real life, It punishes campers and it rewards player awarness also,

Another great topic by my favorite DayZ scientist! Many players talk about how spotting a mushroom means that there might somebody else around, but now we finally know how and why! Thanx a lot!

I think mushrooms should be technically correct and only spawn after it rains. That said it would be nice to be able to somehow track a player for a given amount of time (footprints, broken branches,etc). My 2 cents.

This has been possible for years. I te amazing how many experienced Twitch players complain about never finding food yet if they just waited for a couple of minutes they’d have all the fruit and stones to make knives and survive for hours

These item tip videos are the way to go man. I know a lot of people that like the survival aspect of the game more than the combat.

A friend and I were frolicking through the woods. He picked up a rotten mushroom and threw it at me. It started rolling down a hill. We followed the mushroom, trying to catch up to it as it sped along. Finally it came to a stop. When we looked up we realized the mushroom led us directly to someone's stash. I tend to toss rotten mushrooms around randomly now.

Known this for over 2 years now and have always told my friends about it. Thanks for making me seem a little less crazy 🤪

I loved seeing mushrooms and saying to my friends "someone is close" and they just get all sorts of confused lol

Check inventory around trees if you find yourself in an area that you looted the house already and coming back on your tracks. Grab some fruit to go lol

if you hear wolves very close but they dont come after you, somebody is around

Environmental awareness is a thing that is awesome in a game like DayZ. The spawn amount definitely isn't realistic but it's the only way I see it working well without a lot of extra features and headaches for new players. A way to "properly" implement player tracking would be to look at real life. IRL animals and humans usually leave hints: usually prints, signs of activity (rubs, tool marks), feces/trash, and crushed underbrush. Bohemia could make it so mud spawns in random spots (ever present near water and increases in spawn rate and size with rain vs sun decreasing), and a player will leave a trail in the mud and have muddy boots/feet for 5 minutes after unless cleaned with a water bottle. Muddy boots/feet would leave a trail on hard surfaces like roads and house floors. I think prints should last 15 minutes(+ or - a few depending on balancing) and a freshness stat could be implemented. it would detail how old a print is by 4 levels of freshness. fresh (0-2 minutes old), recent (2-8), old (8-12), remnants (12-despawn). We already have toppled trees so that covers tool marks, but trash is one that can be done. Food like fruits and vege would have cores or trimmings left behind and canned goods or boxes leaving behind the cans and boxes. I believe the player should be able to pick these items up though, to help hide their trail as well as have uses. For instance cores could be used as fertilizer and cans as improvised containers. Crushed Under brush would work similarly to the muddy footprints, where brush is stomped down the width of a player in the 4 levels of freshness, fresh, recent, old, and remnants, but unlike muddy prints it's avoidable by slow movement. It should also make noise as it collapses. These additions would definitely steepen the learning curve and would probably turn some people off the game, but I'd like to see stuff like this.

I would love to see some other mechanics that indicate the approximation of a player. Like scared birds chirping and flying away sounds (or even animation of those ) and such once you enter their area

When I’m starving up north and can’t find or don’t wanna cook.. I always find a good spot and wait for mushrooms lol And if I see mushrooms in the distance if I’ve just ran into the area.. I stay on high alert. Especially if there’s many green ones. I’ve been alive for 19 weeks, solo on official.. thanks to mushrooms.

If items spawn in a 100m circular radius, It is impossible to correctly track any player that has been there in the last 5 minutes, As you do not know what direction in the circle they were travelling. So yes it is a good indicator that someone has been there but it is by no means a fool proof way of tracking someone unless you get lucky and select the right direction.

My guess is, mushrooms weren't meant to be a means to track players, but were meant to be a constant source of food and water. However, as you have pointed out, that infinite food / water source is also basically a bullseye target for that player.

I really enjoy this. As a matter of fact i want the distance from the player in which mushrooms and fruit will spawn was increased, giving an even larger heads up to the player who is not camping. Its hard enough to find players in this game. And being slighted by a player who is basically afk is never fun.

Very interesting and great content! Thank you Wobo. I don't see a reason to change anything. I think it's kinda cool!

Thank you! I’ve been wondering about this for years!

found out about this about 3 days ago, when i found tons of mushrooms near my base. i was building it and just sticking around for some time and then i found like hundreds of mushrooms in surrounding forest

yeah Ive noticed for awhile. Had a base at Rog Castle once and always noticed tons of mushrooms around it on the trails, that weren't on them prior, after going back to base and hanging out for a bit. Did testing with some buddies and found out about this. Used it as a bit of a security alarm to see if anyone was coming by. Worked fairly well.

Great video. Love the mass effect and resident evil background music. Follow the mushrooms to death or glory!

very good info yet again, as a modder some of the things you said make sense and help narrow down future modded ideas and other things in the future. For example i use the Fruit/mushroom and stone mechanics for my Ore Boulders, knowing this know i have some ideas on how I can improve my mods use and reliance of this system. overall good info

This is by far the most impressive dayz video you have created. Amazing

Great job as usual Wobo👍🏼

Something you can easily notice when playing against campers glad its confirmed not just me trippin lol ,great video and I love this feature absolutely essential for immersion and more active playstyle

Hey Wobo glad your back! Hope the wedding went well an congratulations 🥳, for your next video could u please do a guide on the best clothing items in DayZ an what combo of backpacks an cloths are the ultimate load out!

This is the most useful dayz guide ive seen in years

Most people aren’t going to be looking for mushrooms 110+ meters away with a scope. They just aren’t. And without looking through a scope , any mushroom you encounter at close range you’ll have no way to distinguish wether you spawned it in or someone else.

Thanks for the tips!

The more ways to track a player the better I say. I understand that having footprints everywhere or litter from drink cans n food wrappers strewn across the map would most likely cause performance issue on the server so is therefore not viable but if this is the best we can get then I’ll take it! Thanks for the insight, much appreciated.

Your videos are the best WOBO! Great content!!!!

so much intersting, there is always something to learn about DayZ!

Just don’t camp inside. Have camouflage and stay low. And turn this information around on the people who would use this as a strategy.

Today I learned that a small stone and any boulder make knives. I always thought you needed a 2nd small stone

You should investigate bird sounds too particularly crows, minutes before pvp or encountering somebody the crows go ballistic

Last time i was betrayed by a mushroom was in the 90's picking liberty caps, I still have flashbacks to this day.

Seen a cluster of mushrooms on the Zero servers & I remember thinking it was the Admin’s creativity making a newbie spawn point a little more luxurious. Now I reflect back on it more skeptical

Top work, Sensei Wobo 👌

Mass Effect Galaxy Table music in the back ground. Love it!

i think mushrooms and fruits spawning on your camp location is great since most people don't pay attention to it and because and if they do thats the risk of your camping all you have to do is listen for footsteps and have your back against a bush only having to look one or 2 sides to notice the mushroom sniffer

Best RU-vidr, even after I am taking a break from dayZ still love every one

Welcome back, I hope your honeymoon was as magical as your videos!

i though i would have to experiment this myself thank you man lot of time saved understanding this clueless game

ayyye, always gotta love the mass effect music

This effect would be fairly simple to mitigate or to make much more dramatic on a community server if you wanted to. In the types.xml you can adjust the lifetime of mushrooms, fruit, and small stones to be lower or higher once the player is out of range, adjust the spawn rates so that more or fewer appear on the server at once, and even adjust the locations where they can spawn.

Im new to Dayz and you are my favorite youtuber thanks you for everythingg oh yea and congrats on a weding

Very helpful video, thank you sir

I love the inclusion of the plant 42 music from OG Resident Evil in this video

The mass effect music makes me so happy

"If there is a small stone at a spawn point, another small stone won't spawn there as there is only one place for a small stone to spawn at a small stone spawn point. However with mushrooms and fruit spawn points many mushrooms of fruit can spawn at one spawn instead unlike small stone spawn points." Damn.. That 10 second sentence really fuckd my brain

good to see that meta issues from literally 10 years ago in the mod are still in the game

Ahhh I love the use of classic resi music 👌

Spent ages searching for stones to make a knife!! Good to know, thanks

good to know, thx bro!!

So basically what you're saying in the beginning of the video, things spawn and when those things spawn other things spawn with spawn points along with active spawns of spawning spawns. *Takes notes*

The Weyland-Yutani motion tracker in the thumbnail brought me here.

I remember being told about this in a Dayz Facebook group but I didn’t actually believe it until I filled a whole mountain bag with mushrooms lol. So there’s definitely some pros an cons. You can use this spawn system to get a ton of food and never starve again 😆 But I do agree that it’s a lil to hardcore to have your positions revealed because of a couple mushrooms and apples. I’m always paranoid someone’s gonna discover my base because of it. I’m in a spot that can’t be seen until your already on top of it but the mushrooms are a give away

Playing 3 months as of this comment, I'm looking into counter tracking, so how to be less detectable, which brought me here. I'm playing fairly stealthy as a pacifist. I try to farm and I watched a real-life counter tracking video that has me interested in avoiding detection in DayZ. Having zero player and infected kills with longest survival time is my main jam. Thanks for making this. The spawn mechanics are still a bit esoteric to me. From my observations (2024 on official), the fastest I've seen fruit spawn is 12 min. Mushrooms might be faster. Once, I met a survivor and he was rather experienced, I took off all my gear and offered a trade, then we ran for a while together as he sought a BCD set. At one point, we were chilling in the woods as he gave me knowledge and a mushroom popped up in front of us. That was actually My best survival time is 50 hours. I was literally camping in an improvised shelter west of Staroye. I started just going AFK and trying to max out my survivor time until server restarts. I was AFK when I was killed.

lol, I've been doing this for so long. Love stumbling upon piles and piles of mushrooms and knowing a stash or a sniper are nearby

I used to use zombie spawns on console for a way of knowing wether a player was in a town/village, I’d hide in the tree line above Novy Sobor and wait for people to enter the town by watching zombies spawn in as I’d know I was far enough to not trigger the zone

Great info to know here! Good Game

Been playing for years and i didnt know any of this. Lol. Thankx.

Amazing job!!!

Excellent work WOBO, this was the vid I was waiting for. Once again your dedication to research is exceptional. Many thanks.

To be honest it cank work with some imagination "oh looks like this mushroom was stepped on recently someone is around the area" but yeah sure it might be unrealistic but hey its a game and there still working things out always. Until DayZ can implement blood trails, and foot prints this is the best we can do to track players.

Brilliant.

Always knew about the mushrooms.. Just didn't know the stats on them. Thanks.

I am still convinced that a Rooster or chicken notifies me of players coming through my town.

That's what I used to do 😂 I've noticed more and more that mushrooms would spawn in close proximity

I have raided a barn base before,it was in good spot for spawning mushrooms, my game almost froze from loading in all the mushrooms these guys had spawned in, i believe they were sitting in that barn all night

Good stuff

haha this is crazy :D wobo allways with some crazy tip and tricks :D lets track campers ! :) GG

Question: Don’t the named items spawn in front of the player, hence the player is spawning said items and thinks it’s someone that when by? Basically: You are creating a trail in front of you.

Yes! Thank you, I knew my paranoia wasn't wrong.

It's cool. I like it. A base may be close too

I'd love to see you do one of thse on animal spawns and specifically wolf dynamics.

Those damn shrooms! Takin' the 'fun' out of fungus.

Hey could you do a video explaining hitboxes, damage, and whether there is a face hitbox at all please?

This has always been in the game and it should stay that way, as it is now there's basically no other way to actually track another player and i believe there should be more ways to do so. Another reason as so why this game has endless potential, yet it seems the devs have other plans...

You didn't test whether mushrooms spawn at jogging speed or less or can spawn at any speed even if the player is full sprint. My theory was always if you are moving slower than jogging speed they appear to spawn

Thanks Great as alwayz

I dont think this terrible, but the spawn rate seems a bit much. To me this is really reminiscent of the DayZ mod days where zombies wouldn't spawn at a location unless a player was within 200-250 meters of the spawn point. Back then it was really good for gauging how safe an area was before entering and I still use that same principle now sometimes

Can't wait til you cover 1.19!

I logged out deep in the woods in the middle of nowhere. I get on the next day to continue to my journey, and I’m surrounded by mushrooms. Within 15 seconds of spawning in I’m getting shot at. I sprint into a bunch of large evergreens to hide all the while bullets are whizzing past me. I kept running through evergreens, then pulled out my shotgun. The dude ran right through them and I popped him. I ended up with an AKM with two 75 bullet drum mags.

As a new player of dayz who struggles with food I learned something today. Stand still for 15 min in the forest, get all the goodies and have a feast later

Just when I though Wobo couldn't get any better he plays part of the Resident Evil soundtrack.

Hi, one thing I have tested and I believe I can confidently say is that when you are building / doing certain actions more mushrooms will spawn. I’ve been building a base recently deep in some woods in Livonia and there is a very noticeable difference from when I build or just sit in my base.

I have come back from the brink of death (blinking red food) by getting into a forest and spawing in mushrooms a few times. I like them!

I swear. Every time me and my buddy run across just 1 mushroom he freaks out and thinks there's a player nearby. I can now show him this video and hopefully he'll shut up. Thank you! lol

edit: 5:36 it sounded like you almost started to laught around this time :-) I always though these proximity spawns are nasty wistleblowers... But now, thx to you, i have to be even more paranoid since you've made this "public secret" public :-)

I'm all aboard for mushroom tracking.

As a player with stronger PvE skills, being able to track and hunt campers rather than trying to assault head on is my advantage. Every player has strengths and weaknesses, this allows me to engage my strengths to exploit others' weaknesses. Also, since campers are a cancer on the genre, I don't lose sleep over getting the jump on them by exploiting their poor/sloppy fieldcraft

Awesome

Do you think you can show this in action in game to demonstrate how useful it could be for hunting players? I feel like showing is the best way to really get across just how powerful it is.

Reminds me good(?) old arma2 dayz. Infects are spawning when someone entering town, so we notice did someone in the town right now or not..

Can you explain long distance head shots, And how much damage reduction does a helmet prevent at different distances, i shot a guy in the head at 300+ I seen the red mist off his head, The guy had a tactical helmet on and I never found him after that so I really do want to know what is the damage reduction over range for the helmets 🎉❤

I immediately recognized Resident Evil music around 5:10 :]