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I consistently see suggestions on here about how to fix server hopping and almost all of them have some sort of major restriction. Everything from timeouts to restricting server choices to seperate characters on every server. A big problem most of you don't think about is how do these suggestions impact a players ability to actually play? Timeouts currently cause delays and punish the innocent as well as guilty. Server Disconnect or Crashed several times in a row? Enjoy your wait. It only minimally slows down server hoppers/ghosting and isn't all that effective. Restricting server choices how can I play with my friends? Not to mention how can I find the best server for me not only ping based but general play style of other players who visit the server regularly? While the one character per server would be a decent solution it has it's own problems. First it means anytime I want to play on another server I have to start over. Plus what happens when the server I've been playing on for months goes broke or no longer exists? I lose my character and whatever else. The friend issue can crop up again. As I see it the best solutions are only two. 1. Timeout instituted with a server memory so that if you get disconnected or whatever happens as long as you connect to the same server again you don't get a timeout. This is the most likely solution to be enacted as it has minimal impact on playability for most players and still enables switching servers to join your friends or whatever else. The major drawback is it doesn't really address issues of ghosting or server hopping it merely implements a delay and forces it to take more time. 2. Position Reset would be the other. If you keep connecting to the same server it saves your logout position and you start there again. However if you jump to a new server your location is reset to a new spawn location. This basically does two things. People will tend to play on the same server consistently and while it doesn't completely eliminate ghosting or server hopping it will make it much more difficult as now you have to run all the way across the map again. It doesn't have any negatives as far as playing with friends other than having to run to meet up with them. Major negative is the whole spawning in a new location people would abuse this and switch servers until they got a spawn point they liked. It might work better if they added another set of spawnpoints out in the middle of the woods rather than the current new spawn points. Still pretty much it would all be abused for changing location. Granted a lot of what people want to do to prevent server hopping/ghosting will have to adapt with the introduction of persistent backpacks, base building, and vehicles. I don't think we can accurately determine what the impact those will have on server hopping/ghosting will be. Anyways just food for thought. If your gonna post all these suggestions try to analyze things. Think about what the Pros and Cons of your idea are and then post those along with your idea.

Screw my original (deleted) idea! I like ^ in addition to the "server-hopper fix" from the last patch.

Give the players that are already there a fighting chance. Let's face it, even if a player isn't server hopping or ghosting he or she can still end up with an unfair advantage when logging in for the day/night. People can pop in out of nowhere at any time and it doesn't matter if it's right next door to you or 200m away, they weren't there 5 mins ago, but they are there now. What can be done about it? You have to let people login whenever they want and at the same spot they logged off. So what I suggest is to have a bit of an environmental alarm in the form of a loud, unique zombie growl play any time a player logs in within 100-200 meters of your location. That way it's something that still fits within the environment while being a loud enough sound to be heard a fair distance away. This zombie growl would not indicate the direction or distance the player is from you, but just as a heads up that there is a new threat to worry about somewhere in the surrounding area. The growl should sound pretty far way, echoing from over the hills, so that an area that is cleared of zombies doesn't have some unrealistic invisible zombie yapping away. I think this would also be a great way of instilling fear among players, like in the case of a lone survivor looting away when suddenly hearing 3 consecutive blood curdling howls. Oh shit! And yes, the players logging in would also hear the screams, so they too know they are not alone.

Holy crap.. Friend & I just watched a pair of guys Ghost 3 or 4 groups in Elektro. 2 very well geared guys with M4's. All we had was Pistols. We watched from our window off in the distance. As they would come up on buildings leaning into the walls.. Then poof disappear. Shortly later.. M4's going off like CRAZY.. then the guys we saw log out just outside of the buildings. come walking out of that very same building untouched.. One by one, building after building. It was as if they knew where EVERY single camping person/group was. They finally came to our building.. We couldn't believe it.. How did they even know we were here!? When they logged into the rooms we were in. and mow us down. We both unloaded our Mag's into them point blank range & it did NOTHING to them. We have noticed when we log into a server we can't do shit for about 5 seconds. Even after that we get that wonderful Desync for another 5 seconds. Be lucky to see our guns get placed in our hands. Pretty much a 5-10 seconds sitting duck.. But these guys.. Holy crap. Appeared.. less than a second later gun in hand. maybe the 2nd second.. begin to unload it on us... I wonder if it could be possible to be told who killed you.. This way we could report any possible cheaters/hackers. Name - Server - Time. Description of what happened. We could FRAPS it all day but that wouldn't mean crap if we don't know who it is on a 40 person server.

Now let me start off by saying I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW HOW TO GHOST. All I'm asking is, what exactly is it in DayZ? I know in League of Legends or Dota2 it involves watching a live stream of the game you're playing if you just happen to be playing against a streamer. Which would basically give you a maphack. Now the reason I'm asking is because I always see people complaining about ghosting and I believe me and my two friends have been a victim of it. We were in electro walking around and someone shoots my friend and he goes unconscious. I start following him while my other friend epipens my other friend. I watch this guy run directly into the church. I am positive of it. So I keep an eye on the exit and wait for my friends. We all rush in and look all around and he is not in there, not between the aisles, corners, nothing. I'm also positive he ever left the Church. After a few seconds standing there thinking he alt f4'd, we here "don't move" followed by us getting killed by a full auto ak (I think, possibly some machine gun) to the backside of us. He kills two of us and my friend attempts to run from the church but doesn't make it. There is no way he left the church and we checked everywhere. So I was just wondering if this was ghosting in DayZ? And also what ghosting is roughly in DayZ. Thank you!

1. Develop an in-game friends system - might contain friends and "temporary" friends etc. 2. Permit player logout when there are only friendly players around in the vicinity you are in. As long as there are players that aren't friendly in the vicinity, make log-out time something like 5 minutes. 3. If you want to come back to the same server up to 30 minutes after you have left while enemy players were there (and you waited for 5 minutes to do so) spawn in the same location you left from (display warning message on log-in to inform that you will be spawned at the location you left from).

Server hopping and ghosting: I would think the best way to solve this is make it a actual penalty to switch servers.. If you want to change servers, you should randomly spawn elsewhere from where you logged out from on your original(home) server. The possibility of where you would spawn should be the whole map. Server hop too much or be a fresh spawn already and you will spawn at one of the new character spawn points with no gear. This would also make base building less easy to spawn inside other peoples base. Obviously as well with this system, that after so much time on the current server you are in, the server would be considered your home server. With this, the number of how many times you can change servers before just being spawned at a new character spawn points again with no gear will reset. Should have a warning in place maybe as well to let you know a couple more server hops and you are spawning as a new character. **Obviously this is more so a idea for when items respawning is fixed.** Combat logging and Bandit system: One thing i could think of to add on top of another system for combat logging is that it is based on if you are a bandit or not. I guess you can call it the bandit system.. If you want to kill players, there should be a penalty in way that makes it so you dont log out immediately(even if no gunshots in the area). Only time the player killing penalty wouldnt apply is if you kill someone who is a bandit. I would also add a decay overtime effect that persists through death(sorta like UO). That the longer you go without killing someone, your bandit status decreases eventually to the point when you will no longer be considered a player killer. Would be nice also having this in place for the accidental player killing. **Keep in mind, The combat logging idea/bandit system above. Im saying this should be added on top of a system to make it so people cant combat log. Which personally im a fan of the gun shots fired in the area should keep you from logging out for 3 to 5 minutes. Gun shots keep going, your character doesnt log out.. You either run to get out of the area so your character can log out immediately, or fight back.** But not to base it just on gunshots. Add as well that if you are in the area of another player and tempt to log out. It should give a warning saying your character will not be logging out immediately. With the bandit system you would just get the warning saying you are a bandit and your character will not log out immediately (despite if someone is nearby or not). If your character is not a bandit, it will immediately log out if no one is around. -You could add, to bring more of a penalty to killing players and reward for not killing. Logging out while being friendly around other friendlies will log you out immediately. But if a bandit is near, it will not. Friendly near friendly with gunshots in the area will keep you still logged in as well- Also.. Zombie aggro, bleeding and injuries/sickness, and being held hostage/prisoner will keep you from logging your character out til a set amount of time. Lastly.. Zombie difficulty: Right now I think they are pretty much just a nuisance when really they should be very dangerous. The one way I believe this could be fixed is going back into the zombie genre and making it so that they can only be killed by headshots.. This will change gameplay quite drastically I would think come SA when theres alot more zombies in the area. Gunfire would be more of a last resort because of the number of zombies it will attract. Would also promote teamwork since going alone into a town will be a bit more difficult since zombies wont be as easy to kill. A person alone can quickly be in a bad situation if they attract alot zombies.. Could also be quite possible to make it a dangerous situation for a group of people. But yeah.. thats all the ideas I had.. Just think the game can be a bit more difficult really and have a little more consequence for your actions.

This has probably been covered ALOT but I am going to put my 2 cents in also.. Hot Spawning, Ghosting, Combat Logging. WTF Bohemia/Dean.. First off, can someone please explain to me why this wasn't fixed before they even released this game and can it be fixed now that the game has released? I have heard some rumor's that this cannot be fixed with the type of network architecture they have.. If that's the case then I will have to ask for a refund and I think alot of people will do the same because these are game breaking bugs. Combat Logging isn't as bad as the other 2 but it still suck's when you know that person is stuck with no way out and you wait and wait and then finally run in to find out that the person already logged out or you miss that first shot from 600 meters out and watch the character go "POOF" and disappear before your mosin ejects the round.. Hot Spawning A.K.A. Server Hopping is a big one.. Now the server i play on restarts every hour. After almost every restart I get at least 1 kill because someone Hot Spawns into NEAF. It has actually got to the point on my server that Hot Spawner's are spawning behind me on sniper hill and looking for me before they go into the airfield, which has got me to change my position often to avoid being ghosted and killed from behind by an axe. It is almost impossible to avoid being ghosted by a good player because of all the wonky sound bugs. I just don't get what Dean or Bohemia was thinking when they released this or were they thinking about this at all. It make's me laugh now that i think back to all those video's Dean was saying if i am going to release this game then I want to make sure it's done right. This problem just seems to basic, like something any MMO would take care of long before an Alpha Stage.. I actually did a Google search for these bugs and Holy Sh@@ did i find TONS of stuff about it and it all points to these problems not being fixed correctly.. I am not a game designer but I can see these bug's will be this game downfall or Private Hives will be the only place to play. Edit: For everyone that is going to say or already has said "This is Alpha". I understand this is Alpha but that doesn't mean Dean shouldn't have learned from previously problems in the mod. This is a problem that shouldn't have been a problem in the first place. I also understand that this is a big issue and has been talked about by who knows how many other people, but if you read the first few sentences, i specifically asked if anyone could confirm the rumors about these problems not being able to be truly fixed and if you trolls out there actually read this then you would have understood I am talking about how these problems should have been addressed before the release considering they were BIG problems in the Dayz Mod.. Edit: Someone actually decided not to troll and gave me this info.. I don't know where he found this but I wish I would have seen it a long time ago.. Game Exploits* Combat logging protection not workingCurrently many of our features such as queued loading, combat logging timeout, etc... have been disabled as there is the possibility that they will cause additional strain on the central server. Once we know that we can handle the load we will begin implementing these. We do expect this will be a long process, and we'll be working with the community to identify effective ways to deal with this. In the meantime, it is going to be <<< From Rocket

Hey, not sure if theres a topic like this or not but just figured id give some people a heads up. If you ever play with a guy named Croucher (steam ID, ingame name was Justin at the time) just be careful around him. He server hopped and ghosted behind me and killed me. Not sure of the point since half the fun in this game is re gearing up after dying but oh well. Was at the small airbase west of Berezino and he heard me and asked if I was friendly. I was but he had a gun out so I certainly wasnt putting mine away. Told him to lower his weapon and Id lower mine, but instead he proceeded to do that shameful deed. This thread btw isnt meant to be a rant or a plea to KoS him, just to give you a warning. Might be helpful for new players or people who are generally friendly and stuff to keep an eye out if they meet anyone and then see him log immediately.

to prevent ghosting they should make something similar to I:SS where if you log out it will start a timer so that you have to wait 10 seconds to get out and also they should have it where when you log out after then it will start a 1 hour to 3 hours timer where if you log into before the timer is done it will teleport you to the nearest city and if you log in after the timer you get to log into your original spot.

the other day, my friends and i cornered a player and were about to have a little fun with him until he suddenly logged out and disappeared which was very annoying because we would have immediately killed him and looted his gear if we had known. i believe there should be some kind of obvious visual clue that a player displays to alert others nearby of when they are logging out: log out animation: character lays down into a sleeping position log out timer: 20 seconds log out abilities: can see surroundings, can cancel log out (see log in animation/timer) log out effects: vulnerable until timer expires and logs, cannot move or perform actions in tandem, there should also be a log in animation and timer: log in animation: character enters server in a sleeping position and wakes up log in timer: 10 seconds log in abilities: can see surroundings log in effects: vulnerable and cannot move or perform actions until timer expires this would be beneficial in many ways: - adds realism - reduces KOS: players can track and disable others without fear of being logged away from - reduces combat logging: loggers will be vulnerable to their combatants during the log out timer - reduces ghosting: (1) ghosts will be vulnerable to their would-be victims during the log in timer (2) will take longer to jump to empty server and then back, giving more time for others to move away - reduces server hopping: (1) makes it take longer to hop between servers (2) hoppers will log out away from locations where zombies spawn, primarily around loot please note that the length of the timers are up to discussion and balancing. EDIT: to reflect leftcrusade's comments. if a player cancels their log out, they automatically begin the log in cycle x2: thanks to the mod who moved this into the right category

I know that the Dev team are looking at this . .But they need to add the wait timer to the game ASAP.. They reported that they will look at added wait timers to players that are server Ghosting. For me it is bad. We have alot of players ghosting into other servers to Flank our groups all the time. This is breaking the gameplay. Please look at adding a 60 sec timer per server jump, Doubling the time for every jump.. This would stop the Ghosting. Thanks

Let me preface this by saying no ghoster has ever killed me.. I'm not that stupid.. if I engage with another player and they combat log, I don't stay in the same area. It is very sad to see the number of people who brag about server hopping and ghosting behind players to get kills. This is an alpha phase of the game and using a known exploit over and over again just because it hasn't been removed yet is so juvenile. It is very sad to see the lack of honor displayed by some. It comes down to a mentality that it's ok to cheat if you don't get caught.. When players lack the skill required to play games, they rely on cheats and exploits to level the playing field. Usually in most Alpha/Beta phases of game development and testing, if people continue to use exploits, they are banned...

Just got taken out by a guy ghosting on DayZ SA. I think it's pretty lame after a couple days getting your player geared up and a couple of mates ghosting for each other so they can take your stuff. I was in the NWAF and some guy comes up the stairs and dies from me shooting him. He then has his mates log in. One downstairs and two in the room beside me. Whilst one was coming up the stairs the other two came out from the room and killed me. Funny thing is I heard them all log in and reload. I was in the building for like half hour so I know nobody was there as I checked it. Ghosting on DayZ SA is pretty lame. Bring on the Private Hives that's all I can say. Ghosting is the reason I never played ranked servers on the mod. Rant over! x)

If you are unaware of what ghosting is, it's when a player logs out then logs in on a different server in order to get a position advantage on somebody they are attacking and then logging back into the original server. I thought I'd post this idea that the 42nd were talking about on their stream whilst being ghosted. They said that as well as there being a reload sound to alert you of people logging in, there should also be a log out sound such as a long yawn. Link to stream: http://www.twitch.tv/sacriel

All the posts I've seen about how to "fix" these issues involve killing a player, moving a player, or some how breaking immersion. Everyone knows the combat logging fix, add a log-out timer, and if you Alt-F4, your character stays in game for lets say, 30 seconds. In order to stop server hopping and ghosting, you're going to need another system. A suggestion that's been plaguing the forums about spawning 200m away from your last location or so, while effective, yes, it can cause numerous problems. With the way the map is designed, you could easily be glitched into a static object, killing your character, or locking your character until he/she starves to death or dies of dehydration. That's pretty game breaking, I'd get pretty annoyed after spending all day getting geared to have died over something stupid like that. A smarter fix to the problem would be to reduce the spawn % of desirable gear and add queue times to a server. For example, I've been playing on this server all day, my friend just buys the game and joined a server. Well I want to play with him, so I leave my server to join his. But I have to wait 5 minutes before joining. And this timer will double every time I try to join a new server. This queue timer will last 5 hours or so and then reset back to 5 minutes. The timer will not apply to the last server you joined. For example, I log out of my server, if I want to join a new one I have to wait the 5 minutes, but I don't have to wait to join the server I was just on. It's the same system that Riot Games uses on League of Legends before you start a game. While technically people could still server hop, it would be very difficult and time consuming to do so. Thus servers wouldn't be hit so incredibly hard as they are now. It's already pretty likely Dean will implement a system similar to the one I've described, but it shouldn't be implemented until loot can respawn. Once loot can respawn the amount of server hoppers will drop back down to the low % of dayz players; add this system on top of that, that % will be virtually nonexistent. With this system you will not lose your character or current progress, you'll just have to wait before joining a new server. Server hoppers lack patience (hence why they are server hopping) this system will crush them, but hardly affect players who are just playing the game. NOTE: I've probably left out some details, any constructive criticism is welcome.

I am going to sound like such a noob but what is ghosting. I am familar with server hopping and exploting but not ghosting.

Isn't it the best feeling ever? It's like a compliment that you just outplayed them on every level. :D

need to leave game for phone call or toilet business want to come back straight away after? no problem for you :thumbsup: :) click on 'PLAY' and you going back to same server is instant thing ;) what that you saying? you want to go to different server meet friend? ok no problem, for ONE TIME ONLY YOU CHANGE SERVER IS INSTANT FOR YOU :thumbsup: :rolleyes: what that you saying? you need to change again server 2nd time? 3rd time? 400th FUCKING TIME??? :o unlucky for you because now is 15 minute delay on join new server >:( ok so in summary for you zero delay return to last server :thumbsup: zero delay change one time server :thumbsup: but after this you wait 15 minute if you try change 2nd time in one hour :P

It seems there is a large percentage of COD r-tards that play this game as I've seen about 40 or 50 different players so far use combat logging and ghosting (logging in to a different server to move - then rejoin the old server) like a bunch of pussies. Please make fixing this a priority because it's has a huge negative impact on the game.

don't sue me if this is a retarded idea but here she goes. right now PVP is completely pointless thanks to combat logging, and there's not much else to do right now. - bound a player to his/her current server for at least 120 seconds. if the player leaves during combat, his character stays in game for (2minutes) as a dummy. making it pointless to log/alt+f4 during PVP, unless you want to give away your gear. - if a player logs out to go on another server (for escaping combat, loot farming, server hopping or ghosting) he gets the error "Your character is currently logged in. [servername]". Maybe it could show the remaining locked-time in the message as well. obviously i dont know much about the netcode but i hope/guess it wouldnt be too hard to implement this. current server for every player would be saved on the central server. you could argue that it doesnt matter if no one likes the alpha-test right now but more players also mean more bug-reports, more moneys for development etc

I really dont understand why are ppl constantly suggesting crazy ideas for fixing those things. For combat loggers, just do what mmos have been doing for a decade now(if not even more) You want to log out - you have to sit still for 20 seconds. If you dont want to wait or alt f4 your character just stays in the world defenseless for several minutes. For ghosting - when you switch servers you get a 5 minute cooldown until you can join the last one you were in. Server hopping - If you switch servers more than X times in X amount of time you get a global ban for Y amount of time until you can join any server. Am I missing something or is it just so easy?!

http://i.imgur.com/h3sjBVm.jpg This could be implemented with a series of new "spawn points" which, rather than acting as spawn points for new players would act as "bump points" for people who log-out in unauthorized zones. So I think it's really rather simple from a logic standpoint. Just a series of new (x, y, z)'s for bumping. Using the "spawn" functionality has two-fold benefits: one) the basic logic and functionality already exists in the engine and two) it prevents odd situations like getting bumped into water or spawning inside terrain or geometry. Preset "bump points" can be verified safe. There would have to be many points, so you're not likely to get "bumped" to the same place as someone else. To avoid confusing new players, a warning should be issued. "Logging out here will result in your character's relocation" or some such. This would make server hopping impossibly inefficient, and also solve the problem of people "ghosting" into high-value areas in order to ambush players, while still allowing people to log off whenever they want (which is important for people with RL issues like children or irritable bowel syndrome). Thoughts?

This has been mulled over for a long time and there have been many solutions to all of these problems. I thought I would give my suggestion to a possible solution to all these issues in one thread. So here goes.... So when a player joins a server a timer starts for that player. Let's say 1 hour*. ( I'd like to point out that if a player has played in a server for more than an hour and decides to switch server they will not incur any of the penalties below with the exception of alt-f4ing. Same applies to players who leave and rejoin the same server but the 1 hour timer will still reset.) Lets take for example the distance from one end of the Northwest Airfield to the other ( currently one of the prime places for loot farming), which is roughly 1700 meters. Let's round it off to 2000 meters. If the player changes server within the 1 hour* period, when they join another server they will not be able to loot any items within a 2000 meter radius for 20 minutes from that spawn location. Also the timer is reset to 1 hour* again. If they again leave and join another server within that hour* the loot radius is increased to 4000 meters for 30 minutes from that new spawn location, then 6000 for 40 minutes, then 8000 for 60 minutes. For the fifth time the player hops server within the 1 hour* limit their character will be spawned on the beach with no gear. On top of this, the player will not be able to move for 15 seconds for the first hop, 20 seconds for the second, 30 seconds for the third and a minute for the forth. The player will also make a noise in which the radius increases of which it can be heard ( a radar ping, radio static/chatter or something similar ). 50 meters first hop, 100 meters second hop, 200 meters third hop, 500 meters forth. The duration of the sound will also work on the same basis as the player not being able to move, using the same time frames. In addition to this, the players character will have a log-out timer regardless of if they log-out by the proper means or by alt-f4ing. A disconnect will always be incurred with a timeout. The players character will stay for at least 10 seconds. In regards to server hopping this will be increased too in the same fashion as server hoppers not being able to move when they log-in. Furthermore If a player disconnects while, bleeding, being shot at or hit by another player or being hit by zombies; the players body will remain in-game as if they had just been killed and they will spawn at beach when they log back in. Disconnects through Server crashes or restarts will not apply to these rules. If a player is found being sent to the beach more than 3 times they will automatically get a 24 hour ban from playing in any server. Also values can be tried, tested, tweaked and changed to fit what's most suitable and effective. So in summary. A player that switches server within an hour of joining server will incur the inability to loot items within a 2000 meter radius, will not be able to move for 15 seconds, will make a noise in a 50 meter radius for 15 seconds. These values will increase for each additional server hop as stated above.

Ghosting has been a problem now for years and doesnt really seem to be going away. For new players... ghosting is when your team gets into a firefight with another team, and a couple of them log out, log into another server, come up behind where your team was, and log back into your server to flank you. For example, my pals were pinned down in a building, there were 4 baddies outside. We killed a few, but they kept the door lit up and their friends kept respawning and coming back... eventually one of them disappears, then a minute later he appears behind us and kills one of us as the rest of them rush in the door... classy stuff. Are there any plans to ever do anything about it? Its a major problem.