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This is really an issue to be honest. On zombies it works fine to use nonscoped rifles and sidearms. But on players it's pointless. I was sitting on a corner, 15 meters away when another survivor was crouch-walking across the street. I lined up my M1911 with the iron sights, held it still as he walked into my sight and I squeezed off right in the torso. The player immediately "bungee corded" 5 meters back (sorta like he was ghosting) and I lost sight of him. Didn't get a kill message either. I know it was a dead-on shot, but given how he more or less warped away immediately when hit (and probably ALT+F4'd out) I was unable to tell if it was a true hit or not. I had many cases like this with assorted weapons, ranging from shotguns to rifles and makarovs to G17's. If you want to kill something you need to just spray like hell and hope the goddamn code has him synched up by your sights. Lately I've stopped going near residental areas where I know there are players due to the unreliable hit detection. Much safer to just scavenge deerstands and isolated buildings or factories, and just pop people from 500-600m out with a scoped rifle. Yeah it's alpha, but come on... is hit detection this wonky in Arma2 on multiplayer? No reason it should be in DayZ.

I wish they would lock characters to servers, that way you can have multiple characters and server hopping is gone. Also, the disconnecting logout timer would fix the problem where people disconnect to avoid death. It would also be interesting if they test out that when you logout your character pitches a tent or a sleeping bag and goes to sleep on the spot. You can be killed, robbed and eaten when you do this thus providing a more realistic survival mentality of having to find a location to disconnect safely. They could also add a feature taht allows you to enter one of the buildings that are not enterable and logout there as a safe house. I dont know but I think this would be interesting and would be a solution to the disconnecting to avoid death and even people just appearing out of nowhere (ghosting) because you would be able to spot a sleeping player and know that he can spawn there if he logs in. I think that since this is an alpha, something like that should be tried out.

Consequences of one's actions... Can you give me examples of one's actions that have consequences that are not easily escapable? Is the anger due to someone not getting "the kill"? You missed out on murdering someone... I just don't get the anger in that. Murder is not sportsmanship at all. It's the cheapest of the cheap. Don't get me wrong, I've shot my share of people, I've been shot by my share of people. I don't alt/f4. I have aborted after a firefight was over, I killed a player and I was badly hurt but alive. Had my friends come give me assistance. I did not avoid (imminent) death or the firefight but only when it was over did I abort. It's my perogative to abort when I like is it not? I don't mind folks dc's during combat when I'm shooting at them as much as I care they can then go to another server and ghost me from behind. If you shouldn't be able to avoid combat in the zombie apocalypse by dc'ing you certainly should not be able to bend time and space to go to another dimension only to return on this dimension in a different space. I say if anyone uses the proper way to disconnect, say using the abort menu, let them dc without issue. If they alt/f4, let them start in downtown cherno during the next log in (on the same server only) in the exact same condition they dc'd (bleeding out, unconscious, whatever). or... You could also force any alt/f4 dc'd client to reconnect within say x minutes (put arbitrary number here) or risk a full respawn starting over with nothing. Bottom line, these issues we squabble over are part of one big test bed. Working within the constraints of the current engine I doubt this will be solved. If this ever makes it to a stand alone product I'm sure something will be put in place and I'm sure it will be there by design from the beginning. To continually argue over things that likely cannot be changed or that are not within the scope of the purpose of this alpha is ridiculous. Is it a problem? Maybe? Not for me, it's the ghosting that pisses me off. Is it a priority for the devs to put some mechanic in place to stop it at this point? I doubt it. At this point they are testing for what works what doesn't in prep for making the real game, on an entirely different engine. Should they waste time to fabricate the mechanic on this engine when they are not going to use this engine for the final product? In my opinion, no. I'd rather them spend more time on the real game.

OP, thanks for the long detailed post. I love reading stuff like this because it shows that people care about the mod and want to improve it. However, I think that you, and most people, are over thinking/engineering this, including Ander's radio tower. From all the posts I have seen I have consolidated my own version of how to deal with ghosting and help minimize server hopping. Solutions to Ghosting: 1) Disconnect timer (30-60 seconds) 2) NO DISCONNECT IF YOU ARE IN SHOCK 3) If someone uses a weapon within 100-200m of you, +10-20 seconds on your disconnect timer. I have a different opinion on how to rid the game of server hopping entirely, which I won't go into here. I also LOVE the idea of radio towers, but only for the suppression of ZED spawning.

Thanks for the link, that was very interesting! I don't agree with the premise whatsoever, but at it made me really like the idea or portable radio towers suppressing zombie spawns. Solutions to Ghosting: 1) Disconnect timer (30-60 seconds) 2) NO DISCONNECT IF YOU ARE IN SHOCK 3) If someone uses a weapon within 100m of you, +10 seconds on your disconnect timer. I believe all of those should be implemented. It would make the game oh so fresh.

I think you're completely correct, and that this seems to be a solution to ghosting. I do not agree with the 30 second timer fixing most of the problems. You also should not be able to logout AT ALL if you have shock. I also think that 60 seconds is more in line with how time flows in DayZ - faster than you think, especially when you are engaging a patient player. I honestly would prefer that the logout timer would increase if bullets were being fired in your direction. Example: Start at 30 seconds. If a weapon is used near you add +10 seconds (100m would be good to avoid snipers keeping people from logging in buildings they have no hope of hitting). This would make escaping an engagement nearly impossible and it would add stress to the situation as you watch your logout timer going up instead of down leading players to abort the disconnect and deal with the situation!

Admin abuse is blown out of proportion and highly exaggerated. What isn't is the bane of the game - disconnecting to avoid death and ghosting (and to a more severe degree but less frequency - hacking). By removing any threat of repercussions for doing this it is becoming the norm not the exception. DayZ staff do not have the resources to review and investigate every case of hacking or exploiting - so why the holy hell are they trying to do it. There is an amazing resource of mature and adult admins who are wanting and willing to host a clean server that goes by the rulebook - a desire that benefits the entire community. By not taking advantage of that they are making a massive managerial faux pas. They are doing this because of a few bad apples that have been shouted on and on about as if shitty admins reign supreme, but that isn't the case. What they are doing is simply the inverse of what they are wanting to accomplish. They want to avoid admins banning someone unjustly, but instead they go around and let exploiters unjustly manipulate and ruin the gameplay for thousands of others while castigating admins for trying to perform a normal and classic function since time immemorial with respect to gaming. It would be one thing if they had robust gameplay mechanics to stop the exploiting, and I continue to hear about the technical solution being so easy. If it is just a matter of coming up with a punishment mechanic then begin to experiment with each patch and get feedback. Instead DayZ devs are sitting on their hands as a problem eats at the very core of the experience while shatting upon the folks paying for the real estate to promote and play the mod. Very few admins and server hosts want to ban anybody for those are the very folks who populate and make their server a place to play. DayZ can't even respond to blacklisting the locked servers, how can they ask admins to submit a support ticket to take action on a duper, ghoster, dc'er, or hacker. We all know nothing will ever happen with those tickets. Frankly, the server that I co-admin and that our group pays for will probably not be renewed. We will be shutting down our server on Friday, the 20th in protest along with a number of other servers as recommended by jskibo. I hope more admins jump on board with this to help raise awareness of the schism being formed between the admins, developers, and players. ... and if a solution is forthcoming - or at least the experimentation thereof - a communique would be more than welcomed, but preferably a dialogue like has been done in the past.

Seriously, i've been to both alot and it seems to me that Berezino is actually MORE populated than Cherno now? For example, yesterday I was looting the hospital on a 15 player server, and whoop, what do I see? Another survivor right under me while i was on hospital rooftop. I shot him, went to the apartments, just to see another survivor camping with a double barrel who promptly fired at me like an idiot out of range. I killed him as well. This all happened under an hour in a 15 player server. Today, I go camp on the hill on DE312 with a CZ overlooking the hospital roof and grocery entrance. The server had around 30 players in total, but in less than an hour I have spotted more than 10 survivors trying to ravage the hospital/grocery! NOT EVEN KIDDING! First I saw a group of 3... I took one down whilst they were in the grocery store, before the other 2 left. Then a lone survivor tries to loot that body 15 minutes later, and i fire but miss. He heads north afterwards. Then a group of 4 come in within 10 minutes... 3 of them enter grocery while one goes on hospital rooftop to cover them. I take the one on the rooftop down and the rest head north. then 12 minutes later a group of 2 enter grocery store. I fire on them but i forgot it was at night so my muzzle flash probably gave my position and i got sniped myself. Cherno has always been hyped as a deathtrap, but from my experiences today Berezino is the same now...Such a shame it used to be so peaceful. It's like the new Cherno except everyone there is armed to the teeth. On a side note, the devs should really do something about sniper rifles. It's too easy to just sit on a hill overlooking hotspots and get free kills, and the only counter to it is another sniper rifle or ghosting.. And although they're rare to find regularly, for server hopping farmers it's not a rare commodity at all. It makes gunfights and PvP situations lame and boring. And no it doesn't take skill, at least not on regular servers where I can determine range with the scroll of a mousewheel, then zero my CZ550 farmer rifle accordingly to get kills.

I believe you're legit. I just wanted to see the hit go down. It's harder to defend against guerrilla tactics and you guys are dangerous. Definitely something I would like to prevent happening to me. = ) And as for accusations of hacks, it might seem like a cop out, and I apologize if you feel offended, but the reaon most of us are so paranoid about it is that every day in the 3 or 4 hours I play, I will have some obvious stuff happen on our servers. Examples include someone spawning an A10, helicopters, hundreds of bear traps, nuking the server with kill scripts, etc. We also do have issues with ghosting, which I think IS easy to define: Logging during an engagement to achieve a better position. Easiest countermeasure would be a 10 minute wait to relog onto a server. Anyway, hope to see you in game. I've got some ammo I'd like to give you ; )

This is a terrible idea. You are placing the onus of Alt+F4ing or ghosting on the victims of this practice, rather than penalizing people that engage in this practice. If implemented, it means I have to effectively carry a radio tower everywhere and have it operations, thus making me a more visible target, and for what? So the ghosters can spawn automatically outside its radius and crawl in for the kill anyway? Just implement the 30 second logout rule. It solves pretty much everything. Finally, speaking from a realism standpoint, how is this "realistic"?

Expert bandit you are not. Server hopped and ghosted 3 guys. Intentional or not its still ghosting. Also i dont believe your story because it has one flaw. You say your wheel was shot out and thats why you stopped. Yet the bandit drove away in your car. Without a vid to back it up i call bullshit.

I like the idea of a portable tower, but I don't really see why we have to trade anything off to prevent ghosting. Alt+f4ing is an exploit according to Rocket. Maybe at the very least the military areas should have 1 or two in place. These appear to be the biggest areas with server hopping problems anyways. It would at least remove that problem from those hot spots. Or perhaps place them on top of the control towers at the airfields. I think it should be constantly on, but you could even add a switch in the tower that could be player controlled. I assume this is just a temporary thing. It's nice to know you are at least trying to come up with solutions for the problem, so thanks. I'm also all for anything you guys are planning on implementing that aids with camp construction. Camo netting would be great, but if it is the same pattern as the tents, it would just make your camp stand out even more. I'm not sure which stands out more, the Ural, or a tent. Any possibility of turning off unlimited sprint? That would probably aid camp construction more than anything else. Right now it is just too easy to get around the map.

Ghosting is an exploit. You shouldn't have to expose yourself to extra risk to protect against an exploit. You should just fix the exploit. Besides, acknowledging logins and logouts as part of the simulation just feels wrong.

In before "there's no rules" "it's a sandbox" and "there's no 'right' way to play this mod" posts. All of which are bullshit. No, really. Except the first one. There's no rules apart from no racism? Yeah whatever. How about tossing in a few rules then? Start with the premise "you have no legitimate reason to server hop while camped in buildings like the NWA barracks." You do it for loot? bitch please. Loot doesn't spawn if you log on inside a building. So stop lying. You're only server hopping there in the hope of catching some other player unaware and get a cheap faggy kill. There's no right way to play the mod? Are you shitting me? There sure as shit are some wrong ways. Ghosting. Server hopping looking for players either in buildings or in towns you have an overwatch on, You think that's the "right" way to play? I think you're a moron for even expecting me to swallow such unmitigated bullshit. It's cheap, It's cowardly and it's pathetic and you know it. It's a fleas dick above running outright hacks. In what way are you part of some ooh la la hardcore survival realism flavoured zombie apocalypse if you're switching servers every five minutes? Ever last motherfucker camping the North West Airfield or Stary tents who hasn't seen a survivor for five minutes, who then logs onto another server, waits another attention-deficit-disorder indicating period of time before server hopping again, getting a kill on the guy who has two friends on overwatch and just spent 30 minutes casing the place on the server you just logged into, then switching servers yet again, I'm talking to you. You're fucking the game for people who actually want to play it properly. GTFO you candy ass cheating little bitches, and fuck your "there's no rules" bullshit. Ban server hoppers? I'd rather stab them. /rant

Lost a dmr and 8 or 9 mags that i got from a guy i killed and his alice pack, when i logged in the next day, i had my old alice pack and another weapon i never had(M14). Once i randomly logged in and had a nvg and gps :P Cannot complain about that, but i died with that char to a guy ghosting :( (spawned behind me).

funny how we only play on servers that ban for DC'ing now and have alot more fun. Sucks to dodge a ghosting little punk. I respect the owners/admins for doing what they do. Bitch all you want, bottom line is if you're not doing anything wrong you'd have nothing to bitch about.

Whilst this is something that we've done in the past (This kind of metagaming isn't forbidden), I wasn't actually using CQF tags during the op. I was using my normal ingame name, that i use when I'm filming YouTube videos (Izmak). I was forced to assume a CQF tag in order to join the server without being kicked. @Johnny - my beef isn't with you, or with the vast majority of CQF in general. As mentioned beforehand, we've had a lot of good fights with CQF in the past, and we'd like that to continue. I do appreciate that my original posts and edits were perhaps a tad harsh on CQF, but this was bourne out of frustration (32/40 members on the server being tagged as CQF, on a server owned by a CQF Member). I'd love to see an apology directly from the member in question (I'm not expecting you to apologise on his behalf), but I fear that there's absolutely no chance of that happening, because he seems convinced that we were hacking/ghosting, and won't heed any facts or information that we may present otherwise.

Server hopping during combat (ghosting as mentioned above) to get an advantage is bad, but server hopping by itself isn't necessarily so. For example, three friends and I recently migrated a lot of stuff to a new server and we logged in/out probably a dozen times in the course of 30-45 minutes to move items from tents on a different server to tents on the new server. We really need our own server, but for now we're diversifying to several servers due to how unstable some servers are at times and other servers that just disappear.

NO! Read some of the stickied topics please. The only reason to ban someone is racist talk or disrtuptive behavior. Or outright cheating (running scripts that spawn items) Now, if this player is ghosting (using server hopping to move positions and kill players) you could ban him from your server, as that is an outright exploit. But there are plenty of legitimate reasons to server hop, and I have never seen a rule anywhere calling it an exploit

Would help a lot to argue about this radio thing if next time the purpose of a feature would be mentioned in the initial post. I don’t know if this Radiostation should be implemented to prevent ghosting or support end game camp building, to prevent looting the item-spawn-points by server hopping, to support markets or clan wars with mark their territories... People are talking about a lot of interesting ideas, but its so divers that its hart to make a point about the actual topic. Radios are a cool thing and fit pretty good into the world but just to bring them in somehow because they cool and fit isn't the right way. It should be the other way around, like: “We want to support the late game and camp build for bigger groups. An idea we had is to use radiostations which prevent spawing of players in that area. What do you think? What other ways are there?” Or “We want to give the possibility to set up a Radiostation. What could it be good for?” Something like that...

Wonder if a logout timeer is even possible with this client/Server structure. Maybe one way would be to just not be able to choose a server you want to log in. Instead of a list of servers you jhave a list of friends who are online to join them, or you just join a server with the best ping. Would it make more difficult for ghosting.

As I've stated throughout, no ghosting was involved at all. So where's that sincere apology from the Server Admin of US366, the one who is in CQF and who performed this chain kicking? Not to mention reassurances that such behaviour won't be repeated again in the future.

Even if we had been ghosting (which we weren't), it is neither a kickable, nor a bannable offence. This was clearly stated by Ander in the thread that I linked further up this thread: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/2216-chernarus-quarantine-force-cqf/page__st__340 I do sincerely hope that CQF cleans house at somepoint in the near future. We've had some enjoyable engagements against you guys over the last few weeks, however the events of last night really spoiled the atmosphere and impressions that we had of you all. With regards to returning the favour, you are more than welcome to come and find us, either on the CQF Servers, or on our usual home of SE 6. :)

I dislike the idea of in game items fixing an metagaming exploit. Having said that, I want to hear peoples opinion on two ideas: 1) logging out without a fire or tent does not save your location. - punishes new players until they find matches. 2) location is server specific. - stops ghosting and server hopping - encourages play on one server, thereby building communities.- would be a pain when server goes down.

US366 is not apart of the CQF officially and is ran but some new person in our group is all. You cannot blame our group for something we have no control over and Mad_Vengence apperently does not understand how things work as a Server Admin before he ban you off. Ghosting is a kickable offense and a banable one as well. I heard this come from Ander himself. It just has to be able to be proven just like anything else. Now I heard nothing about no ghosting from this inncendent and our group CQF. He was told to stop this banning without proof and Ander has said to unban you as well. This is just my professional opinion. As for US21 restarting to night time we do no such things. Also, I rather you not put your opinion on us when you are just dealing with a bunch of our recruits who never know what they are doing at all. Though I must say I am sorry you were kicked from that server US 366 a bunch of times but that server is not connected to the CQF. It just control but a Recruit of our that wanted to get a server. Though on another note I'd be happy to return the favor to you and your buddies for picking on a bunch of our recruits like that :) Signed, Second Lieutenant Emorangers23 of the Chernarus Quarantine Force/The First Cav.