Suggestion for Combat Logging

[Ragotag 29]

Not sure if this has already been suggested, but couldn't find a similar post, so...

Assuming a server-side mechanism can be coded to reasonably assess a combat logging event, then the premise here is really very simply... treat combat logging as a suicide, drop a body containing the player's gears at the spot of the combat log, and tag the player for a fresh character re-spawn.

For added protection, the server could also provide to the player a brief warning message - prior to allowing the client to disconnect - that the action to disconnect will be considered as a combat logging event. This *should* handle all other situations where the player is not intending to combat log, but the combat logging detection algorithm indicates that they are. Such a warning message would allow the player an opportunity to cancel their logging action and relocate and/or change their situation so that it is not construed as a combat logging event prior to disconnecting.

Edited October 18, 2012 by Ragotag

[ebay 34]

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Edited January 1, 2019 by ebay

[Ragotag 29]

A simpler solution is to just do what WarZ is doing. Implement a cool down time. The player can't combat log. He needs to find a safe place to disconnect because his character will stay on the map for a minute or two after he disconnects.

That's been discussed before, but there seems to be two big issues with it:

1. How long should the cool down timer be? (Anything less than 10 minutes is somewhat pointless in my opinion.)
   
2. If the cool down is sufficiently short, it won't prevent ghosting.
   

At least a forced suicide would totally eliminate combat logging *and* ghosting.

[[email protected] 450]

How long should the cool down timer be? (Anything less than 10 minutes is somewhat pointless in my opinion.)

You want my character to stay in the game ten minutes after I've logged out? Are you serious? That's just plain stupid, I'll find my character killed everytime I log back on because someone stumbled upon it after I logged out? No, thank you.

Edited October 18, 2012 by James Ashwood

[Ragotag 29]

You want my character to stay in the game ten minutes after I've logged out? Are you serious? That's just plain stupid, I'll find my character killed everytime I log back on because someone stumbled upon it after I logged out? No, thank you.

Gotta take the bad with the good if your going to implement combat logging / ghosting prevention of some sort. Plus, you can always run off and hide under a tree somewhere. =)

I did say "in my opinion", but I'm also not a fan of a cool down timer as was mentioned or discussed in other posts simply because, just as you pointed out, everybody has a different idea of what is an acceptable cool down time. IMO, forced suicide for combat logging with a server-side warning regarding such actions seem to solve the whole cool down timer length issue.

[[email protected] 450]

What exactly do you even consider 'combat-logging' and how do you dertermin when someone did it?

[harley001 315]

HOW ABOUT A MINUTE LOG OUT TIMER THAT REQUIRES YOU TO STAND STILL!? Seems simple to me.

[Ragotag 29]

What exactly do you even consider 'combat-logging' and how do you dertermin when someone did it?

The answer to the first part of your question should be somewhat obvious if you've played DayZ long enough; but as to the second part of your question -- good question.

The Short Answer

If I were the designer of such a game mechanic, I would first approach this by defining what it means to "enter into a combat situation", "remain in a combat situation", and then "leave a combat situation". I would then consider applying a forced suicide to any player who "enters into a combat situation", "remains in a combat situation", and ALT+F4 or attempts to otherwise disconnect from the server without "leaving the combat situation".

The Longer Answer

There are a number of ways to skin this cat, and what I propose here is just one way, and not necessarily the best or most popular way; it is just an idea of how this could be accomplished.

"Entering Into Combat" -- There are two ways that I can see this happening:

• You shoot at another player and your bullet/round/projectile passes within some distance of your target.
  
• You get shot at by another player and their bullet/round/projectile passes within some distance of you.
  

In either case, I would consider the mathematics/geometry of a bullet/round/projectile's trajectory passing through a sphere centered on the character having a radius of X; the value of X would be something to play around with, but I would consider 10 meters to be reasonable. Obviously, that may have to get adjusted differently for melee weapons or explosives, but I would consider the maximum effective range of the worst in-game pistol as a default minimum range.

"Remaining In Combat" -- This simplest solution to this would be a timer that gets reset back to maximum each time you fire a shot and/or get shot at in such a way that the above "Entering Into Combat" criteria is met. This way, as long as fire continues to get exchanged, the timer keeps getting reset. Once again, the duration of such a timer would also be something to play around with, but I would consider anything between 2 and 5 minutes within reason.

"Leaving Combat" -- The obvious one here is when the "Remaining in Combat" timer expires, but I would consider adding one other way of "leaving combat" or killing the "Remaining in Combat" timer -- I would make it based upon the distant between the combatants, that is, some minimum range that must be met in order to kill the "Remaining in Combat" timer early. Again, this minimum range is also something to play around with, but I would consider twice (2x) the maximum effective weapon range of any firearm used during the combat situation, whichever is the longest between the combatants, to be a reasonable disengagement range. This way, the "combat situation" could be terminated early by either the shooter leaving the area or the target escaping from the area.

Anyway, just one idea of how this could be done.

Edited October 18, 2012 by Ragotag

[Ragotag 29]

HOW ABOUT A MINUTE LOG OUT TIMER THAT REQUIRES YOU TO STAND STILL!? Seems simple to me.

Yep, that's simple enough. In my opinion it doesn't solve anything though. In example, you're in a town and get sniped at from another building. You return fire and hit your assailant, who immediately backs up into the safety of a room. Now I don't know about you, but unless you go charging in, it will likely take you longer than one minute to tactically approach that room and attempt to finish your assailant off, which by that time he very well could have combat logged to exit a situation that he started. This happens all of the time by the way, which is why I don't think a one minute timer will work for such a solution.

As it stands, I think Rocket is currently considering a 5 second timer like this for stand alone, which in my opinion solves nothing, even if players are ranked for server exclusive based on combat logging events. Why even go there at all, just force a suicide -- problem totally solved and no more advantages to combat logging or ghosting.

Edited October 18, 2012 by Ragotag

[[email protected] 450]

Alright, I can understand your reasoning there and I've seen that suggested before and I think it's pretty much the only solution I can see actually working. Though that really doesn't stop people from just pulling the plug because you really can't punish people for losing connection. But I guess not many people would go through such length to escape a shoot out, might be easier to just bail.

[Ragotag 29]

Alright, I can understand your reasoning there and I've seen that suggested before and I think it's pretty much the only solution I can see actually working. Though that really doesn't stop people from just pulling the plug because you really can't punish people for losing connection. But I guess not many people would go through such length to escape a shoot out, might be easier to just bail.

You totally have a good point regarding people just "end tasking" or who suddenly lose connection to the server. However, I would gladly suffer a forced suicide if the latter happened while I was in a combat situation if it prevents combat logging and ghosting. I would certainly rather have a viable solution to this problem than to not have one for fear of that 0.009% chance that my system or Internet will crash while I'm in combat. Just my opinion though...

Edited October 18, 2012 by Ragotag

[Zeppa 562]

Are you serious?

You really didnt know if this was suggested before, or even tryed search?

Should be obvious that someone(million) have suggested this before you if have been around more than few days...

This must be in the top3 most suggested ideas of all time here... use search. Would be nice if people just wouldnt response to these threads so they would die faster...what did I just do.

ps. there is also far more "forgiving" methods to deal with this than leave the char on the server, that should never happen.

Edited October 18, 2012 by Zeppa

[Ragotag 29]

Are you serious?

You really didnt know if this was suggested before, or even tryed search?

Should be obvious that someone(million) have suggested this before you if have been around more than few days...

This must be in the top3 most suggested ideas of all time here... use search. Would be nice if people just wouldnt response to these threads so they would die faster...what did I just do.

ps. there is also far more "forgiving" methods to deal with this than leave the char on the server, that should never happen.

Are you serious? That's all you have to contribute to this thread?

I did mention at the top of my post that I did use the search function and came up with no results. It's not my fault the search function is less than stellar or other posters are not using relevant tags. Here were my "Search" results:

" Suicide" - Didn't result in any similar OP.

"Forced Suicide", results in "Website Currently Unavailable"

"Ghosting" & "Combat Logging" got some hits:

• Safe Zones - Nope, not the idea I've proposed.
  
• Log off Delay - Nope, not the idea I've proposed.
  
• Save Your Location and Sleep - Nope, not the idea I've proposed.
  
• Log On Delay - Nope, not the idea I've proposed.
  
• Prevent Spawning In Locations - Nope, not the idea I've proposed.
  
• One Character per Server - Nope, not the idea I've proposed.
  
• Hive Handshaking - Nope, not the idea I've proposed.
  

Oddly enough, what I did find was more than few posts by you bitching about people posting. Yep, you have an interesting way of contributing to a discussion -- kind of useless by my way of thinking but each to their own.

p.s. - I agree with you that leaving an active character on the server is a bad idea, and that's not at all what I proposed. Did you even read the content here or did you just decide to take it upon yourself to bitch based on the thread title? No... don't bother to answer, I question whether any response would just be equally as pointless as your last.

[Zeppa 562]

There is no need to contribute these threads million times, long original threads with good discussion are being forgotten when these pop up every hour when people dont bother to search.

http://dayzmod.com/f...ing#entry941875

pointless indeed... do you think people wanna make same discussion xxxx times everyday when some people wont bother to search and contribute their view on existing thread?

ps. If you cant figure out what words use in search just look few pages back on this section, you will see.

Edited October 18, 2012 by Zeppa

[Lefroy Jenkins 32]

The server I play on leaves an NPC "dummy" for one minute in the event of combat logging. It's a bit hit or miss on whether or not it's actual "combat logging" or not, so the one minute timer provides some leeway in that case. It seems to work well for us, there haven't been any extreme cases. Plus, the server records will show anyone who repeatedly CLs, and they'll catch a ban for it.

@Zeppa - Why not follow your own advice and just ignore these new threads, or bump the old ones, rather than trying to turn it into an argument about "pointless" threads? You'll feel better about it, and so will everyone else.

[Zeppa 562]

@Zeppa - Why not follow your own advice and just ignore these new threads, or bump the old ones, rather than trying to turn it into an argument about "pointless" threads? You'll feel better about it, and so will everyone else.

That is true, but there will be people like you to pump these also so it really doesnt matter where do I post. I just prefer to let you know that your contribution is more usefull else where. So its really doesnt matter.

[Lefroy Jenkins 32]

I've actually been more interested in discussing the ideas than in contributing to the stand alone. I like to think about stuff, putting it very plainly. But I don't think there's much difference either way. If there are hundreds of separate threads about the same idea, it will show the same interest level to the devs as one massive thread would. Perhaps more so, because once a thread hits a certain length, you begin getting responses to months-old posts, and complaints that the response has been covered already. Also, most people won't take the time to read through the entire thread. TL;DR, right?

BTW, don't get the idea that I'm trying to slight you in any way at all here. Just offering a different point of view is all.

Hey! I just noticed your sig. I think it was from my first suggestion thread about maps for the standalone. :) Beans!

Edited October 18, 2012 by Lefroy Jenkins

[Bludy 324]

it's already been suggested..to me, the best solution is the 30'' timer and you can't move or take damage in that time.

[Zeppa 562]

it's already been suggested..to me, the best solution is the 30'' timer and you can't move or take damage in that time.

Interesting, what is the point of timer then if you cant take damage?

@lefroy

I get the point you are making, who know what is better. I like to think its the long thread with lots of aspects of the. Also easyer to manage, rather than having 350 pages of posts and 2 posts per page about the same thing..

Edited October 18, 2012 by Zeppa

[Wili 156]

HOW ABOUT A MINUTE LOG OUT TIMER THAT REQUIRES YOU TO STAND STILL!? Seems simple to me.

I agree on this, maybe 1 minute log out timer and 2 minutes log out timer if your character was hurt in the last minute; if the character moves or receive any damage the log out process is cancelled.

Here is an example where you can look around while disconnecting, any displacement or damage to the player would result in a log out cancelled if the player crashes or do alt+F4 the character remains 1 minute online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBVplYOJeM0

If you crashed would be nice to being able to reconnect even if the character is still online, in some games you need to wait for entering the game until the character disappear from the world.

Edited October 18, 2012 by Wili

[[email protected] 2416]

You totally have a good point regarding people just "end tasking" or who suddenly lose connection to the server. However, I would gladly suffer a forced suicide if the latter happened while I was in a combat situation if it prevents combat logging and ghosting.

I doubt this is really the case.

If it was a feature of DayZ you would HAVE to accept it, I just can't believe if you legitimately lose connection and the game decides "you are dead", you'll be any less pissed than anyone else.

If everybody runs the risk of auto-suicide when they get disconnected, that would be a bigger cause for bitching than ghosters and combat loggers combined.

Whether you're fine with it or not, there are many players who get kicked from servers for having poor connections who would not suffer this gladly.

And you can't tell me admins wouldn't abuse this mechanic. (fire 1 round + boot = free loot?)

I have no all powerful solution to the problem, if it was a simple fix it would be done by now.

I think in standalone DayZ, we'll be chopping and changing how login/logout works for a good while.

Trial and error is the only way to find an acceptable middle ground. These ideas are all good in theory, but nobody can tell how it will play out without trying it.

[Zeppa 562]

1. regular abort = timer, stay still and dont take hit for 30 seconds, char removed from the server when done..

2. no response from client(altf4 etc) = keep char on server for 1 minute, if dead after time leave the body for loot.

3. Admin/battleeye kick(ping etc) = remove char immediately.

?

Edited October 18, 2012 by Zeppa