venthos

Oh this is fantastic where this thread is going. This is even better than the "truther" angle you had going on before. Please, continue *grabs some popcorn*

I think I want to hug you, ChrisR :D You understand the intention of the combat system

All that's missing from this thread are catch phrases like "people need to start waking up!" "see the truth, man!" etc. Can you please throw some in there for your next reply, Maxxgold? Do you have anymore bits of information that They™ don't want us to know about? This thread is fantastically hilarious.

This is not a lag spike. This is the fact that the player monitor script runs in an infinite loop and sleeps (pauses) for 2 seconds between iterations. This is done to *prevent* lag (and the monitor script has been this way since forever). You may not have noticed it before, but that behavior isn't new. The Debug Monitor was always delayed by up to 2 seconds as well (it used the same monitor script). It doesn't make sense to run a script that's looping hundreds of times per second to say "Are we in/out of combat?", so the existing monitor script is leveraged which only checks every 2 seconds. It's a reasonable tradeoff in my opinion. For all those upset about the distances involved, I think perhaps I should've named the system the "Action System". instead of Combat System. I don't care if you're lighting someone up with an Mk 48 Mod 0 or sitting in the forest playing blackjack with a friend. If you're "doing" something in the game and should be prevented from logging out on a potentially pursuing player ;P While I think the original distances involved are fantastic and work great (they've been in use for a month on the DayZ Redux servers), we (the community team) have ultimately decided on more conservative values for DayZ Official. Next patch, the radius in which firing sets others into combat around you is being reduced from 70m to 30m, and the radius from bullet/object impact from 50m to 15m (although they're still subject to tweaking before next patch). So, there ya go ;) I yield to the fact that I always want to make DayZ even more frustrating and unforgiving than it already is, which seems to be way too far on that spectrum for some folks to cope with. I concede that for the general DayZ official mod, the proposed new conservative values make more sense.

What you describe, Slyguy65, is precisely the situations that this system attempts to enforce and allow. Yes, people should be able to lock you into a building by firing a bullet every 29 seconds or less. It gives away their position, keeps themselves in combat, and in the event of a buddy keeps their buddy in combat. If anything, them giving away their position/presence gives you the upper hand. But even then, this isn't a "fair fight enforcer" it's a combat system aimed at forcing you to confront your attackers (and also confront your victims if you suddenly lose the upper hand on the victim). While I feel 50m is just dandy, we're going with a more conservative value for official DayZ. It's already planned on being dropped to 30m for fired near (down from 70) and 15m for bullet/object impacting near (down from 50). At least those are the tentative values for next patch (they may change before then). But, those situations you exclaim would still be quite possible (which is intended).

I honestly haven't had a chance to test 1.7.3 and I've been slammed with other stuff with my day job and Redux. I just looked enough through the repo to verify parts of my combat system were in use for 1.7.3 when that announcement was made. If that's the case and it's not working properly, that's a shame. I know the community dev team that I'm now involved with for DayZ Community Edition has been hard at work thoroughly testing features, though. I'm curious if anyone else has had these issues. Now that I'll be be present for the start of the next push, I'll try and audit the system and see what's up. It works great in Redux, so it should be easily fixable if something is awry.

It's pretty clear that you've just been trolling me the past few posts. So all I have to say at this point is it's good that this is a community effort and not reliant upon your unfounded reasonings. At least you're honest when you said you're providing "stupid examples", they are quite stupid. I'll stop contributing toward the pollution of this thread by responding to your drivel. Your trolling of me ends here. We'll see what becomes of the situation once it rolls out live. The only concern I have is of lag/desync, which is why I'm rewriting it for next Redux patch to fix it. Had I had the opportunity to have any say in its inclusion to 1.7.3, I would've requested it be held back until such time as my rewrite. But, I wasn't involved in the project until afterward. 'til release, WalkerDown. Rage on, my friend.

I can't think of an effective solution that doesn't instantiate arbitrary/unreliable methods that would essentially be either ineffective or far too punishing. This is why DayZ Redux does not currently and does not plan to use multi-server hives. Every server I turn up will be independent. If you'd like to link to your thread, I'd be glad to read your opinions on the matter. This doesn't stop combat logging, it just punishes people way way after the fact. The first and foremost effect I wanted with my solution was to stop the frustrations of legitimate players having cowards combat log on them. Even if you enact some silent logging thing, that legitimate users frustration and inability to claim his or her reward. It seems backwards to me to punish the legit player by letting them still get frustrated and err on the side of rewarding the combat logger until/if the admin decides to do anything later. That's why DayZ Redux's method kills. When it works properly (which it does most of the time) the combat logger is punished, and the attacker is unaffected by the combat logging -- loots the stuff up -- and moves on. I want my legit players to have smooth play. The "kill" aspect doesn't work for public hives admittedly, because they can't "make whole" again people who were unjustly combat logged. But, I'd rather manually address the rare unjust combat log instead of manually address the cowardly combat log. At least with the method going into DayZ official, it's a balance of the two. Cowards still get called out immediately (and can later be dealt with), and unjust combat logs have no effect beyond aesthetics. So you're going to "exploit" the system by... using it just as it's intended? What you describe (trapping someone in an office so they can't combat log) is verbatim one of the situations that this system empowers you to do and result in punishment for the person inside for cowardly logging. If you're talking about "trapping" him in place with no intent of killing him and just forcing him to stay logged in, then I don't see how that would work. He'd get sick of it and rush out at you and get killed/kill you. Again, this isn't a "Fischer Price Presents: Fun Time Fair Combat" feature. I don't care if a squad of 20 rolls up on someone with a Makarov and just laughs and pins them down in a building so there's no possible outcome other than their certain death. Just because it's not a "fair fight" doesn't justify a combat log. Own up to a fight and partake in it, even if it means certain death. Last week on Redux we had a Huey and chased some guy off into (coincidentally) an office building. The gunner kept occasionally firing a round into the area where we believed he was hiding (to keep him in combat) as we watched all the exits from the sky. A squad mate dropped out with a parachute and went on to assault on foot and eventually found and killed the player. Note that our fire then put our own squad mate in combat, and we still had no idea exactly where he was in the building. The guy we were pursuing could've just as easily killed our own guy. It was pretty awesome, because we knew if it weren't for the combat system the guy would've logged. Later on, the victim of that fight posted to the forums and mentioned how scary/cool it was. It wasn't a fair fight for him, but the combat played out. That's what this system aims to do, force you to, well.. play the game. The only "legit" combat log is one to evade a hacker, which we've gone over ad nauseam to the extent that there is no real negative effect as long as the admin for the server is competent.

Understandable, Inception. I understand it's a crappy situation. But, why does DayZ have to be an exception? I'm not aware of any game that has compromised its playability to accommodate for unreliable connections. If you play an MMORPG and lose connection in a boss fight, GMs aren't going to warp you back/restore experience/etc/etc. If you play a ranked shooter match and disconnect, the operators aren't going to setup a rematch. Why does DayZ have to compromise? I mean I didn't sit here going "mwahahaha only the internet elite will get to play DayZ now!". But, I didn't want to compromise my system simply for the sake of that. Especially for (and I can't believe this was brought up)... storms? We can't enact a combat system because of... storms? Stuff happens. It's crappy. But the aim is to cause the most inconvenience/penalty to actual combat loggers. As has been stated and restated, your best bet is to not just pick random servers each time you play (if you do that) and pick a server to establish yourself in its community. If people get to be familiar with your name in fights and the admin recognizes you as a stand up player, your connectivity shouldn't be an issue. The admin would be understanding. As has also been said, if people don't like this -- it'll go away. It's community driven after all. I'm just blown away by the people who are outright against it and claiming it's going to cause the apocalypse in game before it's even out. Give 'er a go on DayZ Redux. Go look for the "massive threads" complaining about how the combat system is terrible (and the Redux one KILLS combat loggers, the one going into DayZ official does not kill). I think I'm personally aware of one complaint thread early on. I mean there's people who frown about getting nicked by it unjustly, but their response is either [1] Oh well, since I didn't actually combat log I just ran back to my body -or- [2] They ask me for help, I review the logs, and teleport them in the database (private hive) back to their body. (Another reminder: DayZ officials version does NOT kill. Alert/log only) Sure there's got to be people who get frustrated and don't bother posting anything and just leave the mod. But, I have to imagine that with such a low complaint count and TWO servers bouncing off the 40 slot caps, it's not some "game ending mechanic" that some people in this thread and wanting to claim it to be. It's more common to see posts from people who are smirking at the fact someone tried to combat log on them (and didn't realize the mechanic was in place). The sheer aversion to an aesthetic reprimand only (before it's even been released and tried out) is just weird to me. As has ALWAYS been the case, finding a respectable server with a good admin is key to an enjoyable gaming experience with DayZ. As to whoever told me "Well if it's not perfect, why not make it perfect". I'd be happy to, but I doubt I'm getting access to ARMA2 Engine and BattlEye source code any time soon :P For it to be near perfected, they'd have to be able to "talk" to each other so that ARMA2 scripting could determine if and why someone was ejected from the game via BattlEye, RCON, etc. It's about as perfect as it CAN be given the limitations, but the limitations are bountiful. If Rocket decides to implement something like this system in standalone, he would have the opportunity to polish it up quite a bit more given they have access to the engine source.

It doesn't matter how you disconnect. ANY disconnect fires off a combat log. You can't evade the system. It works. The only situation in which you won't throw a combat log for disconnect while in combat is if the server restarts or shuts down while you're in combat. That's it. Beyond that, no cable pulling or process termination will save you.

I've been laughing at how angry you've been this whole thread, camping it and constantly lashing out about it. All the while, you haven't even played with it on. I have (and with the kill effect on). So have up to 1273 other people (the DayZ Redux whitelist size). There were a few concerns starting off and shakiness. But, since then it's been running for a month and I am having issues getting enough servers quickly enough to handle the player base. You seem to overestimate how often you're actually in combat. I am quite sure there will be lots of server admins that disregard combat logging altogether, and possibly just as many who enforce it. That's kind of one of the reasons for not forcing the kill effect in official DayZ. People will get to decide to play on a server that welcomes combat logging, or bans for it. The key here being player choice. Personally I won't ever play on a server without a combat system (one with kill switch on) ever again after playing on servers with it on for the past month. It's nice having actual fights occur versus someone logging out because they don't have the upper hand. That's the biggest complaint I'm seeing. "But what if the situation is stacked against me and I have no chance at winning?" Then the combat system is working and forcing you to confront your attackers/die. It's not a "fair fight enforcer". It's a system to make sure you play out an encounter. As said many times before, server admins will just have to use logic and reason when perusing the logs to not punish people who combat log against hackers. I still am thoroughly amused by your "prediction" when this system has already been in use for a month solid on my servers and I can't keep up with the player demand. Not everyone will like it, but it's not going to be some big surprise outcome either. It's been field tested for a month by up to over 1,200 survivors. Please continue to speculate. I'll continue to speak from a month of experience. It's not a perfect system. Not everyone will like it or enforce it. But, it works reasonably well and has been proven effective.

You misunderstand me. My gut reaction isn't "I want to seek legal action". It's "wow, having this happen to my code (the two independent projects yanking 100% of my code) makes me want to never create anything else". That's not what's happening (yet?), but I guess you and I have different reactions towards this sort of thing. I even have been refusing donations to Redux until I at least feel lag/desync has been stabilized suitably, and even then I will only accept up to the limit of the two dedicated servers I'm leasing for the project. Any extras (again if I even ever accept donations) I would turn around and use to buy DayZ standalone copies for my player base in a raffle. That's how much I *don't* want money. I just want my code to be respected and myself as a developer to be respected. Not getting respect simply makes you want to stop doing what you're doing... not sue someone. But, regardless, let's get this back on track to the combat system and any questions thereof ;P Yeah, i'm with you.

Funny you should mention this. I just learned (2 minutes ago) of yet another mod group who has taken to lifting 100% of my DayZ Redux code base and rebranding it without even contacting me or asking for permission. Well, that's a bit of a fib. They contacted me with general ARMA2 modding questions on how to get started and basically resulted in me helping them with lifting all of my code more easily out from under my nose. I guess that's what I get for being helpful? The constant lifting of my code, especially without even contacting me for permission, is getting tiresome and draining my drive to innovate new features and fixes. What happens if the person people love to steal code from stops generating new code altogether? They make me want to find out. I don't understand people, apparently. Why the aversion to contacting me and asking for permission?

Haha no worries. I'm actually honored to see you interested in something I've contributed to/worked on ;)

I agree with you in principle, but the whole "Public Hive" is what throws it for a loop. If you allow people to selectively implement the "Active" mode, they are still affecting the players on the public hive and therefore not just your own server. This means, if I'm a terrible self-entitled admin, I would be able to: - Turn on the active 'kill' mode. - Get frustrated with someone in game - Shoot at them - Kick them from console/etc, forcing a combat log (since a "kick" counts as a disconnect). I could then effectively kill anyone I wanted on-demand from the public hive. This same danger exists in the private hive, but it's just that -- private. They can't affect your public hive character. I've said it before and I still stand by it. The faction of DayZ server admins that I classify under the "self-entitled jerk bags" heading are probably the second most detrimental thing to the game, second only to hackers. It doesn't matter what the code allows for if there's a jerk admin at the helm ruining their players' game play. That's the unfortunate reasoning behind why DayZ Redux isn't wide open for everyone to use. Some of the code I have in place is just so prone to admin abuse, and it would really bother me to see admins abusing my work and giving it a bad name. If Redux fails, I want it to be because of me. Not bad admins. Right now I'm in the process of trying to identify trustworthy admins to run additional DayZ Redux boxes (we need'em, bad. They're pretty rare, too). But, that's why this modified version of the system is going into the public DayZ release since it can't be abused by admins beyond just getting you banned from that admin's server vs. killing your hive character. I'm sure I'm going to get TONS of flak for this paragraph, but it's the truth of why Redux is private.

The "Abort" button would be disabled (to prevent you from accidentally combat logging when in combat) and you would hear the flare of whoever was being a jackass outside so you could promptly dispatch some lead into their cranium ;)

Take it from R4Z0R49, the team lead of the DayZ Community Team, who posted a few pages into that announcement that the change log Rocket posted was inaccurate and that the "kill" feature was not being brought over: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/103211-pending-update-build-173-community-edition/page__st__40#entry969684 The combat system only produces an "Alert" to the server population and the server logs that you combat logged (in DayZ official, at least). If you REALLY decide to go all out and circumvent the anti-combat log mechanism (blocking "abort" and "ALT-F4") and end the game process, your only fear of retaliation is by the server admin. I'm curious to see if this spawns a "Community Ban List - Combat Logger Edition". I guess we'll have to wait and see. WIthout something like that, people could quite easily just server hop as they get banned and move along. But like I said, the "negative" in the implementation going forward for DayZ means the biggest negative impact would potentially come from irresponsible admins.

You've shown me your cards here in that you didn't actually read my original post, in which in two separate sections of the post I explicitly state with bold, underlined, red text, that the "kill" effect is not going into DayZ Official. I'm not sure how you expect me to take you seriously after that comment if you won't even read my thread.

Getting the "no message received" prompt by itself doesn't count as a disconnect. If it continues to count upwards up until it actually DOES disconnect you, then yes, that would fall under a disconnect and therefore potential combat log. Regarding the hacker situation, I tried mention it several times in the OP, but the "Kill" aspect is not being carried over into DayZ official. A hacker would have no further ability to "kill" you with the combat system than without it. I'm pretty sure a reasonable admin would go "Hmm, 30 people combat logged at once. I bet a hacker was there.". The bigger danger in that situation is a jerk/inexperienced admin who can't understand the logs -- not the hacker. EDIT: The only real repercussion for combat logging with this new system is an admin manually banning you from their server after seeing the broadcast message or reviewing the logs. That, and other players on the server thinking you're a combat logger and treating you accordingly. Find a worthy server/admin and a lot of peoples' concerns should be alleviated.

Yes, oddly enough I would like you to stop speaking in hyperbole and actually present your evidence. There's been bugs I've missed in DayZ Redux that my community has let me know about. You seem to think I have some omniscient power. This is a "Community Effort". Why are you trying to prevent yourself, a community member, from being involved in a community effort? This makes me sad if this is the type of input the DayZ community team can expect. "I'm not going to tell you if you don't know already". Like I said, this combat system (WITH kill effect) has been in use for 30+ days on DayZ Redux with minimal frustration.

If you have an inventory full of flares and are willing to animation lock yourself to throw them all at great risk to yourself (vulnerable to other players), then I think you've well earned the ability to keep someone logged on. Since the only punishment enforced is aesthetic (server announcement/log data) in that hacker situation, I would be more frightened by a server admin that couldn't process logic and reason enough to understand when such a situation is occurring and therefore not react negatively to their player base as a result. An inexperienced admin frightens me way more than a hacker in that circumstance, since the only threat in your combat log scenario is the retaliation of the admin -- not the hacker. EDIT: Let me restate what I mentioned in my original post, that the above is my OPINION and not representative of what will happen with official DayZ. The DayZ Community team could very well disagree and decide to remove things like flares/etc. from causing combat. I am responding to all of these questions with my OPINIONs. Do not get angry and take it as "therefore this is how official DayZ will always be". That would simply be untrue. Since I'm now involved with the community dev team for this next patch go around after 1.7.3, I'll be able to lend a direct contribution going forward. But, I wouldn't really expect (at least at first) droves of new content. There's a lot to address as it stands with existing content, and new content for DayZ official needs to be approached methodically. Having everyone involved dropping every new feature they think is neat into the mix would be a mess in my opinion. If official DayZ wants chloroform, I think that's neat, but making any promises would be preemptive of me. I'll do what I can to help DayZ official, but my primary focus will still be DayZ Redux since a lot of the core changes in DayZ Redux would never be tolerated in official DayZ (loot changes, spawn changes, etc.). DayZ Redux will still be unique regardless how much of its bug fixes get absorbed into official DayZ ;)

Unless your friends habitually logout by force closing their process, they'd be unable to "Abort" or even "ALT-F4" while in combat. You'd have to be an amazingly lucky person to time the shot while they have the "Really logout?" prompt up and just before they hit the final confirmation. In such a rare case, I guess you're right though. So far I've only read that you claim it won't work effectively, but you haven't posed any reasoned arguments as to why you feel this way. Care to elaborate? I'm all for adapting the system. The system has been in place for a month on two servers that bounce off the 40/40 cap during primetime hours (I need to get more servers up) on my DayZ Redux mod and there have only been a small isolated few cases of unwarranted combat logs. This is coming from where the kill effect IS in use. I'd have to side with 30 days of historical data on two max population servers versus theoretical statements with no reasoned arguments ;P I don't claim the mechanic is perfect (in all honesty it can't be as long as ARMA2 scripting cannot discern why someone disconnected). But, it's pretty darn effective.

During a restart/shutdown, the disconnect code isn't called upon since nobody "disconnects". The server just halts. Therefore it's impossible for the combat log logic to run and do anything. Anybody in combat during a restart/shutdown would have no ill effects claimed against them.

This is the exact reason why I went with killing combat loggers in my mod. The "ghost" system is still acceptable enough to a lot of combat loggers to risk it. With the insta-kill, there's nobody who would willingly combat log. But, your tears are misplaced TSAndrey, as you didn't read the replies to the thread indicating that the "kill player" portion is not in this update. It's potentially not being ever implemented in favor of just putting in the server logs that you combat logged (so the admins can just ban you for it if they wish) and broadcasting your combat log server-wide so that people know you did it.

Please let me know your wish list of items... so I can ensure I never write a single line of script code for them. I can assure you that stamping your feet like a three year old, instead of providing well reasoned arguments, will not get you what you want.