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How about Experimental for everyone with the same number of servers as now. No more server hopping - no more Ghosting

This discussion started on a weird premise. The public hive offers the feature of being able to play with YOUR one an only character, which you're supposed to care about, to any server participating in it. That itself is a great thing and was somewhat new in gaming. Sure there are issues with this feature, like combat logging and ghosting, but this can be dealt with in some way or another. There are several systems out there for the mod to deal with this, like logoff timer. Yet OP insists that the public hive idea itself is inherently broken and that the non-existence of a feature gives one something special. Weird thinking. tl&dr The hive is a feature. Problems can be dealt with. You weird!

That is one risk but it's small compared to the unfairness the current system presents us atm. The private server system presents more advantages than the public hive like combat logging and ghosting not possible, sure a player can still log during a fight but because that player is bound to the server with his character you can easly investigate that person and warn him/her not to do that again, no hopper can jump into the same building as you of course a player who logged out in a building before can suddenly appear but that is less likely to happen because a player playing on one server is better off logging out in a safe place. The private servers have to be run by either a provider or a community ( which is more likely ) and kept running with donations, that's the only obstacle in this matter. Then you can let all the public hive player whine about not beeing able to find loot because of the hoppers because you on the other hand have a closed environment. And you can set rules that are ignored my the majority because it's YOLO it's a game stfu n00b when you remind them of unwritten rules of gaming. And you can make every player join one voice program ( with something like ACRE ) if he wants to play making the telephatic planning impossible.

I would love to know if this is to be an actual, functioning test server or if it is strictly for testing if the whitelist. If it is the former does anyone have info on the whitelist application process so that I might join. I would really love to be able to test the game without server hopping affecting loot vs. population as well as not contend with the ghosting issues that still occur.

The ONLY way of creating the type player interaction that you're suggesting is to tie characters to a server. That's it. As long as you can carry over survivors and loot between different servers, bumping into someone in the game who you go on to cooperate with in a meaningful long-term way will remain rare. Although server-tied characters solves an awful lot of gameplay issues (server-hopping, ghosting, persistent storage exploits, post-death gear recovery, etc.), I imagine it creates a lot of technical problems. Maybe we'll see it in the future as servers become more stable and better able to handle more players at once - but it may be that the developers simply don't see this level of "realism" or "immersion" as desirable or important, so it may never happen.

Hey. First of i would like to make it clear, that i am for a log in timer solution. The problem is the current iteration is as punishing for legit players as it is for unlegit players, which in my mind is a very big no no. I suggest that to lessen the punishment to legit players, they should remove it entirely unless you are doing some very exact things Like: Ghosting: If you logout of a server, and then into another, you should be blocked out of the first server for a set time period. Loot hopping: If you switch servers X amount of time within a timeframe you get a timer. As is is now, as a legit player, i feel that i am being punished for wanting to play. With this game being in Alpha, server crashed, unstable servers, abusive admins, and a lot more, is all contributing to a lot of legit server hopping. Yet people caught in this landslide is punished with 200+ second timers. TL:DR: If your solution to exploits punished the legit players equally with the unlegit then you made a mistake!

Jesus christ. Have we forgotten there use to be zombies to survive from? Why is everyone obsessed with doing kos and hating combat loggers? If someone logs off, your character is safer to survive. So whats the fucking problem? Ghosting is a problem, but rarely happens. God damn we need more zombies.

You chase someone into a building and he has the 2nd floor, you can't take him on without great risk since he has an advantage. You try to play cat and mouse, eventually holding your breath as you push forward and discover..... he logged. You do a quick sweep, of the floor to make sure hes not anywhere else, he logs back in with no penalty and double-bucks you in the back of the head. For every few minutes you are inconvenienced by this feature, several people are being saved from the combat logging/ghosting issue that was rampant just a month or so ago.

Yeah... sorry, doesn't matter what you put in to "stop" server hopping, you will never stop it, and neither should you. Nothing wrong with jumping around servers to gather loot when you have respawned, have no weapon, starving and have endless zombies to deal with, its only fair that you find something to drink and eat, a back pack of some sort, some rags and something to belt the crap out of the Zeek's.. Only once have i had "everything" i needed after dying and respawning, the last respawn. I found a damaged ax right away, tore up my tshirt and had killed all 7 zombies in town (used up both bandages from the tshirt) but i got enough to eat and headed off to the nearest pond. If i hadn't , i would have respawned onto an empty server and kept it up until i got a weapon and a backpack and enough food. Its hard enough to survive at the begining of a respawn without it. when i first started playing i never understood why i couldnt take 20 steps before being attacked.. i spent the first 7 hours of game playing dying, figuring out gear spawns near player spawns and how close could i sneak near a Z before it spotted me... before i figured out that i should just log out, and then log back in and loot the same houses over till i had the gear i needed.. (mainly a melee weapon). I went all the way to Polana one spawn WITHOUT A WEAPON.. just sneaking and watching for Z's. is it dooable? yes. is it advisable.. No.. Am i using server jumping to hunt and player kill/ambush? No.. attacking other players doesn't interest me. are others using it like that? yes they are.. and the counter being used at the moment is enough of a trip-up to stop Player hunters ghosting through another server and respawning to player kill on their old one. the question is.. why are you still there? Sniping protocol dictates.. take shot (or two) then change position, change cover, dont move in straight lines, follow cover stay below ridges, use natural formations to mask your shape. Stop being butt-hurt about it.. everyone paid for the game, so they get to play it the way they like. Heck.. i have been killed more from falling than other players.. if anything needs to be adressed its that. Besides, a lot of players (who paid ) suffer from lag and connection issues, are still penalized for changing off unstable servers, because of the actions of player hunters. No more penalties please. "safe logout zones" should be implemented until the server restarts are addressed either. I have dropped out a couple of times in the middle of doing things. My best drop out was in the middle of 4 zombie spawns.. I had to get ready for full on Zeek blood bath when i logged back into another server.. ;) *gripe program complete*

I don't think this is ghosting , theres no way he could go up there in such fast time and kill him , btw he was sniping that guy couldn't even see him...I would say this was hack...C++

For the 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999th time, it's not hacking it's ghosting. The person logged out, joined an empty server, ran to your position, then joined your server again. (Not that that's okay either, but it's not a bannable offense.) (Also lol some guy watching over town with a scope...totally not a bandit. :D)

It really depends on how long the person would be locked out of a server. Aside from dissuading server hoping and ghosting, I don't think locking a person out is ever the right way to go. If death meant you couldn't return to your server for, say, 30 minutes, that essentially means that whenever one of our group dies, everyone has to relocate. After all, playing together is the entire point. I don't mind playing solo, but that's something I do on my own time, on the first person hive. When I'm playing with friends, I want to be doing just that: playing with friends.

I hold of the true solution is what the game originally intended; zombies. Lots and lots of zombies. It may be fun to play as bandit, but right now all that equates to is playing is a troll. There's not a high enough attrition rate in gear nor supplies that justify playing as a bandit in order to survive. In fact playing as a bandit lowers my chance of survival. I do not fear dying and losing my many cans of tuna nor my M4. I can easily replace all my things in my character's value is the same. So my conclusion is to give some sort of incentive to the individual life and you give incentive to not shoot on sight. This doesn't need to come from the game overall, in all honesty. It can simply come from private hives, just like it did before. You can run as a bandit on one server, A hero on another. It's easier to develop your community and friends. And you kill farming, ghosting and to a degree combat logging; all are nailed to one server.

I think this could be gotten around. As a suggestion, what if you could buddy up with Steam Friends in the game menu before entering? Then the game knows you're playing together, and puts you in the same server. It probably would require multiple characters per player (one for playing alone, one with this group of friends, one for that group, one for a clan game, etc), and you'd have to start again from scratch each time you wanted to play on a new server with specific people. But that would be ok, wouldn't it? It could be limited to, say, 5 characters per account, so if you want to keep swapping around, you'd have to suicide one of your existing characters and keep starting again... but people could deal with that. For me, the advantages of removing server hopping, ghosting, combat logging, storage exploits, loot hogging, post-death loot-location knowledge, etc in one fell swoop outweighs everything else. The only problem I can see with it is that it requires such a big change to the server management system - but I would hope this could be gotten around as well.

Server-tied characters + forced change of server when you die. I know this isn't a new suggestion, and I know it requires a big upheaval of the current system and carries many problems with it... but it also solves quite a lot of others. It solves server hopping for loot farming; it solves combat logging and ghosting; it solves exploits around persistent loot storage; it allows greater control of the balance of loot per server and loot respawning; it allows players to build reputations in a specific game world (as a bandit, as a medic, as 'law enforcement', etc); it encourages you to get to know the people in your gameworld, because you might run into them again; it allows a server to develop a narrative and encourages players to improve their status within it. It could only work if per-server player capacities are greatly increased, and might also require automated player/server assignments to avoid you being locked out of your server. But I'm starting to believe that it's the ONLY way to sort out the exploits and gameplay problems that currently affect the alpha.

NEAF. Only because the funniest, and best, of my murders happened there. Friend was playing further down south. Warned me that 3 players are on their way in my direction, looking determined. I remembered an orange mountain pack in the ATC. Ran to get it. Ran halfway up sniper hill. Dropped it right in the middle of the little dirt road, so they could see it if they looked. Even repositioned it three times so it would point exactly where a sniper's pack would be pointing. I only BARELY made it back to my nest in time. And there they were. These boys were here for me. Specifically. I mustve had one of em earlier... One went into the jail building very briefly, probably to check if i was in the ever increasingly popular glitch rooms... He also ran to the hangar to check that glitch... Im not that cheap, sonny - i thought to myself. But they had clearly no interest in loot. They were staring down their aights the whole time. Scanning. Seeking. Hunting. From my vantage, the scene couldnt have unfolded any better than how it did. My sights trained very hard on the right cheek of the one furthest away from my decoy, i fired the shot at the exact moment they all turned to face my decoy. The bluepack saw my decoy first. Mountainpack was pretty slowish on the turn, and my target - gasmask - he never got the turn fully executed. The absolute weight of all the lead they pumped into that orange backpack was staggering! Realizing that something is afoot, bluepack started scooting towards sniper hill. Very slow. Very carefully. Eventually he rose from crouch, to what i assumed must be his realization of what is actually goin on. Too late. Bam! In the neck! Last man standing combat logged. This was pre-timer... Thinking very carefully, replaying every second very slowly in my head, frame by frame - i breathed steadily, knowing he didnt know my location. But i also got the VERY distinct feeling that he is ghosting. Logic told me he would try to ghost the backpack. I was wrong. More wrong i have never been. At the same time as me sweeping slowly and unscoped across the airfield, his three M4 bullets rang out. One hit me center mass, right on the vest. The second went flying way left of me, and the third went so far affield, i think the game just deleted it as atmospheric shrapnel. My aim. Slow. My breathing. Steady. My nerves. Shattered. My shot. True. Best day. Ever.

Sounds good to me...would prevent ghosting. HOWEVER, I'm sure some prick would use this to determine where someone is based on which areas they could not spawn in to. Plus if you do spawn in, then you know someone is nearby.

I am absolutely tired of having a server reset that I have been on for the last hour, join in and my character is out of wack so I exit only to end up with a 300 second timer. At this point stopping ghosting and server hopping is secondary to being able to log in and play with your character being correct. We need to focus on getting the big bugs out of the way instead of implementing a punishment for combat loggers and jumpers. Not to mention if I do log out take a break come back 15 min later and have a 300 second timer to the same server I left is pointless. Why would there ever be a timer to the same server you left?

If adding a timer to stop server hopping and ghosting is a 'priority', than fixing the problems that come from an Alpha that make players have to join and rejoin servers should be even higher priority. Not being able to join off my friends, server crashes, etc. I have faced the timer only once, myself. I play with friends and last night I could not join off of my friend. He quit out to find out which server he was in and had to face 250 seconds because of it. Yes, it's just an inconvenience. But it's also a punishment. You say "suck it up". I say it's a poor design and being okay with it on the development end will lead to other short-cuts because nothing else was thought of. My solution? An individual character for each server you go on to, just like with private hives in the mod.

My friends and I changed servers as the one we were on was very laggy, the new one we joined was a abusive clan server who kicked everyone. I had to sit and wait before I could join a new server. I didn't mind because this doesn't happen often (in fact it has only happened to me once) and I would rather wait a while than have to deal with ghosters. Even if this system does occasionally effect people playing fairly, it still isn't strict enough to deter server hoppers. I think this is more to deal with Ghosting than hopping anyway. Hopping will be reduced more when loot re-spawns rather than at server startup. As others have said, all the info you need to avoid joining the wrong server is displayed in the browser.

That would completely eliminate any effectiveness against server hopping or ghosting.

There is no valid argument for nerfing the anti-hop measures, all the information you need to pick a suitable server is given to you and in the unlikely even that something goes wrong and you need to go to another server... a few minutes is a small wait in the large scheme of things. The timers are essential to reducing combat logging and exploiting the hive by ghosting/hopping.

I'm not positive, but it seems like if I stop moving, my weapon responds quickly. If I am moving, I have to keep clicking till it takes. I'm wondering if there is some ghosting issue in the server communication. I know it isn't hardware as my keyboard handles more simultaneous buttons than I can possibly hit and I'm not even using my keyboard, but my mouse, to pull weapons (and it is the only button I'm hitting on my mouse).

Server hopping isn't bad. Combat Logging and Ghosting is bad.

I don't seem to see any difference in server hopper behaviour with or without that rejoin cooldown timer. I play on 2h restart servers and most military bases/houses are picked clean within 15 min after restart. I even stayed near the NEAF and watched what was going on from the hill - 3 instances within first 15 min after restart where some player spawned in one of the barracks run through all the buildings to the other barracks and didn't come out (logged out). I assume this is what happens everywhere else on the map. My opinion - the timer doesn't help shit. Or maybe it does, but the impact is just too small. Why not increase it to 30 min? Or an hour? Hell, Infestation (aka WarZ) had an hour cooldown if you died, why DayZ can't have an hour cooldown when you switch servers? Or give the player 3 options: 1. Wait an hour and spawn where you logged out. 2. Relocate (not respawn) to the coast and try to make it back. 3. Just rejoin the last played server without any consequences. There you go! Server hopping and ghosting killed with one stone. :P