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Hey guys, as a server admin I've run into a few challenges, most of which have been possible to find solutions to online. However lately, an issue that has been in the back of my head for a while has proved difficult to find the answer to. The implementation of timeouts for server hopping is great and all, but in prolonged firefights (ones lasting from 10-15 minutes to an hour) ghosting is still a possibility and a nuisance. I know how to kick/ban people, but how to tell what player is guilty? On highly populated servers people join and leave all the time, and keeping an eye on the player list alone won't give anyone an overview of who joined when and where. The server logs are difficult to read as well, and promising to ban any player caught ghosting seems moot when there is no way to know who the ghosting players are - there are no notifiers to tell a person who killed you, and "check pulse" will in most cases only give you "Unknown identity has no pulse.." instead of an actual nickname. Is there a way to read the server logs to see who just killed who, for example? Or are there any improvements in the works to tell; Who killed me? Who did I just kill?I feel this is a very important issue for anyone running a server (which, for the record, is an expensive affair), trying to prevent and ban ghosting/cheating. Any feedback would be highly appreciated.

I've played 420hrs (mostly on high pop servers) and still not run into a hacker yet. I have seen vids though of the teleportation hacking so I know they're out there somewhere. The only foul play I've encountered a few times is ghosting.

BattlEye bans in waves if I'm not mistaken, so he should be gone sooner or later and chances are will return because of the games low cost. But when you knocked him out you should have checked to see if his clothing was ruined where you shot him on the hill, and if it wasn't ruined then it most likely was another guy, but the respawn timer after hopping servers make ghosting a lot less effective.

There was a guy on my server who kept getting kicked for hacks by battle eye. I could read him getting kicked over 15 times for "hacks #38" So apparently people are hacking and just getting away with it because battle eye seems to not care at all. The same person, same name ZombieLand something logged back on over and over. I then found him. The only other person on the small server I was in. I was in electro trying to find better melee weapon than a wrench when I ran into him standing in middle of intersection by the police station. I said hi with my gun drawn. He just stood there. He replied,"hey just gathering some things. I ran into the police station after saying bye and went upstairs and saw a Mosin. Started running towards it. and ...it vanished. Just gone. In fact there was nothing in the entire police station anymore including the assault vest i walked past. I went back outside and he was standing there this time with a zombie attacking him... He didnt seem to die. I shot at him this time thinking cool Im going to kill a hacker. But he just stood there. Then he disappeared. About 10 mins later I saw him get kicked again for the same reason "Hacks #38" sure enough though...he was back a few mins later. This is depressing. I feel battle eye should be a little more harsh. Ghosting: Later that day I was being shot at from someone on a hill. I ducked for cover and returned fire with my mosin/PU scope. I hit him in the legs saw him go down behind a tree. He fixed himself up and tried to run to another location, He took 2 in the back and I saw him bleeding bad. He made it behind a rock and i didn't see him for awhile. I carfully panned the area and waited, in my nice safe spot. A min or 2 goes by and I turn around just in time to see same guy with a red bandana/paydaymask and mosin with scope appearing behind me... I KO'd him and took his weapons and pants and all his food. When He regained consciousness i called him out on it and he just laughed and said he was a different person. 3 people on server....... red bandana/payday mask and same gun.... Is there future plans to curb this behavior?

Epoch Survival Instincts The Survival Instincts server has been around since the beginning of March, 2014. Since then, players have had numerous memorable interactions, a few of which were bad, but most of them good. Players have experienced the excitement of scavenging for their first can of beans, the thrill of crash-site hunting, the adrenaline rush of engaging in shoot-outs with NPC bandits, and the feeling of utter despair when death knocks on their door after being eaten alive by a horde of zombies. The Survival Instincts server is about cooperative gameplay, teamwork, and semi-realism survival with a small group of survivors against the environment. We are a community of gamers who are looking to live out the zombie apocalypse in a non-competitive virtual world our way. There are several different playstyles on the server, such as scavengers, bandit hunters, minimalist survivalists, solo-ers, high profile badasses who take names and seem invincible, low profile stealthers who sneak into town without a sound, people who just want to see what kind of shenanigans with others, and more. STAFF Administrator {SI Yam} {SI Logic} Map Designer & Scripts {SI Yam} {SI Logic} Promotional Manager [GP] Emptyz The server will not be held "hostage" by a player, group of players, or a person who has donated for any reason. Do not think for a minute just because you are "friends" with a server administrator that they won't ban you without a second thought and a smile on their face. You either play according to the spirit of the server and its rules or go to one of the other several thousand DayZ servers. The official language of the server is English. As such, all players must have the ability to read, write, and speak the English language well. Rules No Dicks Welcome Don't Be A Dick Be Respectful Of Other Players. No Bug Abusing Report Rule Breakers No Base Kamikaze With Planes Or Heli's Specifics In DayZ/Epoch, confirmed cases of combat logging in results in a 72h suspension and a character wipe, repeat offenses may lead to termination. In Epoch, Switching to another GUID (cd-key) within 10 minutes after death or disconnect is strictly forbidden and will result in a 72 hour ban under our ghosting rule. We respect other languages, however we ask that you please in-game text chat to English only. Rules may also be subject to change at any time and as such we expect you to check them once in a while. What We Offer Custom Buildings Across the maps Self Bloodbag Auto Refuel/Repair (Repair costs gold) Custom Written Missions 4 Starting Gold Vehicle Trader On The Coast Safezones at Stary, Bash And Klen Day/Night Cycle FullMoon Nights! Tow/Lift Starting Loadout: Mp5+toolbox+map Active Admins Snap Building Increased Plot Pole Building area (50m) Destructible Bases (Go raid) Buyable Building parts at traders (can buy lumber, plywood, cinder blocks and all other needed parts) Website URL: http://epochsurvivalinstincts.weebly.com/ Server IP:5.63.147.148:3255 Teamspeak IP: 85.236.100.27:19087 Upcoming Events None currently planned.

This is definitely the simplest solution to both combat logging and ghosting. Character position should be saved per server. If your character was never alive on this server it respawns at one of the random fresh spawn locations. If your character dies all of your spawn locations are reset. When locking/fortifying buildings is added this will also prevent users from ghosting into character-owned structures. 3 fixes in one.

How about this: Changing server will be logged and if you switch you won't be able to loot stuff found on spots you visited up to sixty minutes before the switch. Or: You can't switch server before two hours have passed. The ghosting may be reduced this way: Your log out spots are saved on a per server basis (on the server in an ecrypted file that doesn't work on another server and if missing or having been manipulated will result in anybody logging in being spawne randomly on the map way out of any city or airfield. Badmins will think twice. ) and if you log in, you will spawn exactly at the same spot you logged out.

Loot respawn and when you log into a server you are locked to that server for a complete cycle of day/night and server hopping stops. People also server hop when playing hero/bandit role as well as just gearing up, and ghosting in behind foes. Being locked to a server for a cycle alone would stop hopping but without loot respawn would still be a game of getting on a fresh server first, gearing out and waiting in the hot spots for others to come for gear. The implementation of police stations and med centers in multiple places,at least 14 more plus the 2 new cities, will also help out. Mostly some patience on the part of the players to allow the dev team to address the issue IN THIS ALPHA game is needed.

Bording up confirmed. They are working on a way to fix ghosting into the base. I will be living in a Cherno apartment, with several outposts in every area of the map.

I don't care how hard they make them either tbh. I'd prefer headshots being required to kill zombies for example, atleast without wasting a ton of ammo. However I'd still like the respawning fixed, along with the ghosting and wallhacks the zombies have currently.

I really would like making the game mainly of private hives officially supported, I don't know why bohemia thinks the current system is better than private hives, because the current system is so exploitable and avoid possible new cool features like closing a house door for yourselves useless, it makes hiding loot with backpacks "useless" because people will store backpacks on empty servers, it allows ghosting, every good building is emptied by serverhoppers after 10 mins of server restart, etc, etc, etc etc I would really rethink this system and will do more in favor of private hives.

This is 'ghosting' in fact (moving from one server to another and back to gain an advantage over an opponent).. server-hopping is something else..but point taken. Good point too. You are absolutely right that it becomes a different order of problem if player-structures/private areas/barricaded rooms or locked houses are introduced. When a player logs out, his position is saved not only by map location (2D grid location) but also by his altitude, ie - player location is saved in all three dimensions. [ In case I am wrong about the following, can someone put me straight please? ] For the 2D flat grid location there are some problems (almost no problem at first sight) If a player logs in to a 'private area' of any kind, constructed by another player, his login location can be moved to outside that area. For this to work the whole boundary of the private area must be saved when it is constructed, it is not enough to say 'this door is locked, barricaded, etc') This is possible, it can be done 'fairly easily' in itself. So the unknown player, on logging in is placed outside that area. However - there is the altitude problem - suppose the private area is a single floor of a house (not the roof, not the ground floor) or a construction near a steep drop. If the player who logs out on the building's first floor then logs in to a server where that floor is private, he will be displaced to some height above the surrounding ground level. Also, it must be ensured he does not log in to a roof or other floor or room that is not itself private, but has his exit blocked by a player construction And that when displaced, he is not logged in to a 'closed' room ( one of the famous glitch rooms) or on to the roof of a shed, inside a gas tank, off the edge of a dock, etc So for the horizontal element: if the player logs to a 'private area' he is simply relocated horizontally. But a test must be made to ensure he is clear of various obstacles or 'traps' - this cannot be done simply by 'collision avoidance' as there are non-play spaces that the player cannot escape from. These are not 'listed' on the server as the player normally cannot access them. The vertical element requires a second test (to 'lower' the player to the local ground level before his login is finalised). This also requires detection of non-play spaces and obstacles. In the current game, these tests are not required - a player logs out only in a place he can reach in-game - a hill, a flat roof, whatever, and so the server logs him back in the same 3-D location without checking that he is in a playable location. Of course he is. A relatively easy way to deal with this is only to have player-built constructions in the country, on level ground, and displace the stranger's login to just outside the structure. For 'privatised/barricaded single-story village houses there is the same non-playable area problem. An alternative (much more work?) is to have a universal grid of 'safe' log in points, and displace the stranger to one of these grid points close by, while doing the height test to log him in on the ground and not above or below it. I'd like to hear a developer or scripter with experience of THIS engine say how far from the mark are these ideas. Anyway - as a general outline - this is the stuff that needs to be considered. xx pilgrim

Really like the changes to the zombies. A little work on respawning, fixing the ghosting, and increasing their numbers would be awesome!

nice. also, no where in that quote is it specified whether that is public hive only. also, he straight up encouraged server hopping for parts. server hopping as a group, against other groups/individuals. coordinated ghosting other groups/servers to hoard and hop away with their loot. quoted.

cone fire doesn't go away zombies are never really "fixed" companion pets and in-game babystitting crafting and basebuilding that plays and feels like minecraft hunting and cooking being over-complicated the health system going full retard regarding "realism" dev supported sever hopping and base ghosting mmo aspects such as factions, pets, mounts, clothing, accessories that give passive boosts clientside items that should be server side

Add a little bit of spawn drift to the relog timer. The drift causes you to spawn 1-2km from your logout point and is in a random direction. Other players not on your friends list push the direction away from them, so you'll never/rarely spawn near other players you don't know. This list could be editable in your settings (toggle some friends on/off). Things like bases would push you away stronger, and zombies would push you weaker. A base you're a part of would pull you towards it, as would nearby players you're friends with. If the selected spawn point is invalid, it picks a new one and tries again. Drift doesn't apply on rejoining a server, only when joining a new one. Would prevent people from server hopping without a 1-2km run back. Would prevent ghosting (you'd drift on server B and drift again before returning to server A and might have to wait up to 10 minutes).

... or just from persistent-public to public? at the point when helicopters are discussed: basically "hey we need parts from this clan (or established) server, lets hop over there and steal their parts" server hopping for base-rape ghosting is dev supported, rocket approved. or did i get that wrong... i told them we need locking mechanisms on the server doors!

how can i ACTUALLY test my barricaded building, when people who are "testing" server hopping (still...lol) are base raping me by ghosting?

Couldn't hurt uploading a video or a gif of what you mean. I understood it from the description alone but having a visual representation without having to download things is always nice. Anyway, I like it. Deters server hopping and ghosting in one fell swoop. Could be annoying for people who got kicked from their old server, though. I like being able to carry on from where I left off 30 seconds ago, and I'm likely to be pretty disorientated if I'm a kilometer away from where I was when I was last playing, so that's something that needs to be addressed. And presumably the sea/ deep lakes will be out of bounds for getting pushed away? I don't much like the idea of having to swim to shore. There's a few other problems that I can forsee, though I won't go into them, but I like the idea at it's core. Much less likely to penalise players that aren't hopping/ ghosting than some of the other suggestions.

Solution for spawning players outside/inside of bases. Topic brought up here in relation to Rocket's talk today, and as promised here's a possible solution with workable prototype. Basic idea: When a player spawns, they "drift" 1-2km away from their login point.This "drift" would only happen on joining a new server and when the timer would be applied.The drift is influenced by nearby players, if there are any. A nearby player will push the player's spawn position away, meaning players will not spawn on top of other players.If there are no players nearby, drift is in a random direction.This does not happen if the influencing player is on the spawning player's friends list.Zombies apply a smaller push than players."Attractors" can be added (like camping parts, bases, vehicles, etc) that pull the player to spawn there.Attractors only apply if a player has interacted with that item (vehicles) or the player is on the friends list of the player that "owns" that item.Unaffiliated Attractors would severely push players away (someone else's base).Attached is a zip with a simple mockup in Unity. Extract it to your desktop or wherever and open the .html file and everything should work. Click to place a repeller (player, zombie, etc)Shift Click to place an attractor (a base you're a part of)Click an attractor/repeller to remove itEscape clears both itemsPlayer would spawn in the green wedge.Also included is the source, which can be opened as a project in Unity. If a mod wants to sticky this or promote these kinds of suggestions (with code or prototypes) I'd be more than OK with that. Hint hint. Welp, I've got a game jam to run off to, ciao. DayZ Spawn Mechanic.zip DayZ Spawn Mechanic Source.zip

Pretty much just a reiteration of what many have said but its a feedback thread so... I like the speed and damage they do now, got caught with a couple of hits and ended up withy a broken arm bleeding out. Cool, IMHO they should be a threat that if swarming requires gunshots as you retreat, dancing with the axe is fine if a little risky with 2-3 but they need a level of danger, before now they were a minor irritation now they pose a threat. My main issues are though the clipping and aggro'ing causes, to have beefed up their aggression and damage output before sorting out the clipping issue seems to be, putting it politely, a very strange decision. This is nothing to do with being Alpha, this is to do with not planning and implementing updates in a logical fashion. We all want more zombies and zombies that in varying degree's to personal opinion are more dangerous, the majority I'd say are willing and ready for the back and forth as a sweet spot is found but shouldn't the first aim be to get actual working zombies? How is it a good idea to start artificially increasing numbers and 'hardness' while they are ghosting through structures with x-ray vision and hitting from 15 feet away or with their back turned, surely these are fundamental issues with the basic workings and should be in the highest priority bracket to be looked at? Minor issues are the way they spawn just feels wrong and breaks immersion when its in front of your face. The damage that they do to equipment and to a lesser degree clothing, I can understand clothing getting damaged quickly to an extent although one shot ruined is a bit excessive I think but weapons and tinned food need to be more robust, I'm not about to try but I'd guess punching an M4 wouldn't do too much damage to it. Am also not keen on the varying 'stop running' animation causes when changing weapons, with 3-4 zombies on you that can be pretty disastrous. Finally loading into attacks is also pretty annoying, joining a server and being attacked before you can even move is just bad when you have made the effort to log out somewhere safe, its really poor on the part of the game and should be sorted but that said these are minor issues and the type of problems that should be expected in Alpha and I'm sure it will be sorted.

Yes it is a big problem with no readily apparent solution. Having your character randomly change position upon server change would break immersion as well IMO. The whole central hive thing is a novel idea but to me not ideal for DayZ unless it can deal with hoppers properly. The log in timer is a good start to deal with ghosting which to me was the worse issue. The announcement of no timer for re-joining one server is better, perhaps they could lengthen dramatically the timer for others?

Today, I have run into people going into a secluded area and duping everything that was hard to find. I even had times when I, and probably others here, have accidentally duped their gear. Should these individuals who "farm" this gear, if their identity on steam is discovered, be reported for this exploit? I know the dev's are clearly aware of this issue and I know this is alpha!! I am curious if there is any planned punishment for exploiters? To my knowledge, we were able to pretty much stop ghosting, but more things keep popping up left and right, good thing these are all being found in the alpha stage.

The reason they put in a timer for server A->server B->server A is to stop the ghosting that was going on. So you could see a player on server A, go to server B and go to where you can kill player on server A, then spawn in on server A and kill dude. This was rampant, so they put in the timer. Also 30 mins is overkill, 5 mins is perfect.

You could say that server hopping is rapidly changing servers to reap some benefit. A ghoster might be server hopping, but a server hopper isn't necessarily ghosting.