Bramblevines

I would suggest just making half the public servers non-hive servers to give players a choice if they are willing to deal with ghosting on public or not. Also make walls take at least a few minutes to dismantle; make electric wire prevent basic tools from dismantling wood walls at all due to electrocution, so bases are invulnerable to basic tools until the power generator runs out of fuel; and add in very rare explosives that can get through even electric wire.

They could just add in an option to have you party up through the main menu and all respawn on the coast in the same random spot at the same time. The downside would be every member would all lose whatever character they had at the time if you chose to do this.

I also really like this idea. It would also make it more reasonable for new players to survive in the starting areas, while providing a harder survival experience for those out west. It may even give people more incentive to farm and fish in the north west, if they choose not to travel all the way back east and deal with all the dangers that might entail. I would also suggest medical and firefighter loot also be reversed, to provide even more of a diversity in loot spawns and rationale for higher geared players to head back to the starting cities.