Possible counter to alt-f4

[Land Squid 22]

So basically a simple thing really. If someone disconnects/quits out within say one or two minutes of killing a player (basically they ambush the person and then quit before his friends can kill them) Have the server revert their characters to a previous save point.

The kill-and-quitter loses any items he may have snatched off the body before quitting, and the person killed gets restored, life, limb and gear, back at the location of his death.

If you want to go a bit harsher, have the person who quit immediately after killing someone automatically respawn when they next connect, basically guaranteeing the death they were trying to dodge.

Thoughts?

[ramboraider 2]

The whole thing of quitting is to avoid death, not to kill someone loot his things and quit, they quit because they're about to die.

[LordHogFred 0]

Best way to solve this is make it so that if you have been in combat within the last 2 mins and you logout your char stays in the world until those 2 mins are up.

This would solve the problem of PKing and dcing as well as dcing to lose the trail of zombies you're being chased by. If you haven't been in combat within the last 2 mins you just log out as normal. Just show a flag on the debug menu that lets you know whether it's safe to log or not.

[robertstuartmarshall 1]

I think that the game should detect if you get hit by a bullet first or if a bullet has landed within 5 feet of you, and then if alt + f4 are pressed you immediately stand up and start dancing whilst a soundbyte screams "Look at me! Look at me!"

Yeah, not gonna work, but I can dream.

[jetlinerx 2]

Oh crap... I dont ALT + F4 when I am under attack, but I do ALT + F4 just to disconnect and close my game at the same time. Its quite the process to disconnect, get back to the menu, and close the game, and ALT + F4 is always an easy way to finish my gaming for the time being. Should I not be doing that? Or is the only problem an ALT + F4 when someone is under attack?

Thanks for letting me know in advance.

~SLADE

[rocket 16567]

I think that the game should detect if you get hit by a bullet first or if a bullet has landed within 5 feet of you' date=' and then if alt + f4 are pressed you immediately stand up and start dancing whilst a soundbyte screams "Look at me! Look at me!"

Yeah, not gonna work, but I can dream.

[/quote']

The minute you get damaged from any player (including yourself) you will activate PVP damage timer. If you disconnect within 5mins of this, you will suffer a penalty.

[Arnoldio 2]

There should be a 15-30 second logoff cooldown i believe, your character stay on the server and can be killed/looted.

[Land Squid 22]

The minute you get damaged from any player (including yourself) you will activate PVP damage timer. If you disconnect within 5mins of this' date=' you will suffer a penalty.

[/quote']

The thing is, the current penalty (falling unconscious for 5 minutes at next log in) does nothing to deter this. People either wait and hop onto a deserted server, or just coordinate with a friend so as soon as they log on at another server there are waiting there with an epi-pen or the friend clears out the zeds to ensure they don't get eaten during the 5 minute delay.

The cost/benefit ratio simply does not make it a credible threat to prevent quitting out of combat.

Scenario 1: You just initiated combat, sniping someone, and his buddies are now coming to kill you, or someone shot at you an winged you.

Option A: stay in game and absolutely die and lose all gear.

Option B: Mash alt-f4, rejoin another server later, and wait 5 minutes, most likely losing nothing.

Scenario 2: You haven't taken or dealt damage yet, but a bunch of guys have herded you into a building and have you cornered.

Option A: stay in game and absolutely die and lose all gear.

Option B: Mash alt-f4, and suffer zero penalty at next log in.

With the current penalty system the cost/benefit still always favors quitting out to avoid a PK.

[z0mbie 33]

The minute you get damaged from any player (including yourself) you will activate PVP damage timer. If you disconnect within 5mins of this' date=' you will suffer a penalty.

[/quote']

Like Land Squid said, people just server hop, ride out their penalty and pop right back on the server they were on behind the person that shot at them.

Happened to me twice last night, shot a bandit on the balota airfield, he DC'd, a few minutes later he reconnects hiding in the bushes behind me and kills me.

I think a nice way to solve this would be to have everyone have a unique character on each server, that way if someone disconnects mid fight the only place they're getting back on that server is where they DC'd. And hopefully I'll be right there to shoot their cheating faces off and eat my beans over their corpse.

[jetlinerx 2]

You do spawn back in where you DCed...

[vibe 26]

A char should be kept online for like 30 seconds after going in combat.

[Gobbins 2]

agreed

[WaxMan (DayZ) 0]

Does not help the situation where you have some one cornered and trapped but out of direct LOS after they have ambushed you. While you are prepared to sit and wait them out they can just close game had head off to another server with out you being any the wiser (no name tags so the disconnect message us useless), any disconnect should include a local message and audible alert as well as a mandatory disconnect timer on all disconects.

[Kophka 109]

The easiest solution is probably just a log out timer. Old school mmo style, you click "log off", your character sits on the ground for 10 seconds, you leave. You don't have to stay there watching your character sit, you can go ahead and exit out, but your character is still there, and can be killed. Alt+F4'ing leaves you where you were for a few seconds, until the game realizes "hey, this dude left", then your character sits down for 10 seconds, and then vanishes normally. Simple ideas are usually the best. :)

[Gunni (DayZ) 0]

Any small timer is ok so people dont just disappear after being shot. So if you log off you are vunerable not immortal

[jetlinerx 2]

I dont know if I like the timer. If escaping by disconnect is not going to work anymore, then I would rather make an attempt to evade and hide for 10 seconds, instead of giving a free kill to someone for 10 seconds. I dont think the timer is fair, or will work.

[z0mbie 33]

You do spawn back in where you DCed...

I know, what's happening now is this:

Bob and Jim are on Server A.

Bob shoots Jim.

Jim panics and disconnects.

Jim changes to server B, bandages, runs into a nearby bush and disconnects.

Jim goes back to server A, appears behind Bob and shoots him in the back of the head.

What I was proposing is make each server have a unique character, so if Jim was to DC and jump on to server B (which he has not played on yet) he would spawn on the coast with a new unique character and could continue playing. But when he goes back to his character on server A, he would reconnect in the same place he DC'd, still injured.

This doesn't stop people disconnecting mid-fight, but it makes it alot harder for them to turn a fight around when they reconnect. And if the player that shot them wants to, he can hang around where they DC'd and finish them off when they come back instead of getting shot in the back of the head by the same guy.

[timfroelich@yahoo.com 1]

It's a good idea, however with the current state of the mod servers I do not think it would work out.

People would only want to play on their server, and it's already hard enough to get on a specific server when most of them are full, at least during prime times. I am under the impression that you should have your character when playing the game, regardless of server.

Some sort of player required action like camping or something through a menu to be saved is an idea. Removing automatic saves does not seem like a good idea due to servers being restarted or crashing.

Add a character action that is required to log out immediately which also updates your character save, something like camping but should probably work anywhere. It should take some time, 30 seconds for example. Make it so if you Alt-F4 or disconnect via the normal game menus, your character remains on that server for some time, like 1 minute, and you are unable to log back in unless it is to the same server. If you are killed in this time it should be saved on the master server and you start over.

If your character is bleeding you should also not be able to camp, and if you Alt-F4 or disconnect from the menu, your character remains and you bleed to death. I think however you should be able to log out and have your character saved if you have any of the other negative effects, like a broken bone.

Just some ideas.

Edit: On a somewhat related note, servers that wish to be private should then only be able to save character data locally.

[Jimmy James 18]

I think having people stay in the game for 20 seconds or so when they logout with a pvp timer active would be amazing. It'd totally fix this problem.

There have been countless times when someone logs to escape a death. Aside from just straight up pvp fights I once was scavenging, some guy sprints over with tons of zombies following him. I pull a walking dead and shoot his leg and run off, as they swarm him he logs and then they all come after me. Lame!

[azimov 76]

Simple solution is a 20 to 30 second log off timer. I've seen it used in other MMO's to combat the same pvp problem.

[zalman 1]

this is not a mmo, character is client side so i think it would be impossible to have a timer.

[qla 0]

A char should be kept online for like 30 seconds after going in combat.

This combined with the current penalty system would work just fine at this stage.

[shot(by)gun 0]

A char should be kept online for like 30 seconds after going in combat.

1. The basic "on combat if taken damage" restriction wont work.

- Example: Enemy player spots you' date=' you hit alt-f4 before being hit.

- Example: You lure 30 zombies after you. Run near another survivor and alt-f4.

2. 30 second timer is not always enough.

- Example: You shoot enemy from 500m, run 200m and hide, log off. Enemy cant find you in 30 seconds. But you can still do serious damage with no risk.

Suggestion:

- Mimimum 30 seconds log off timer.

- 1 minute log off timer if exited vehicle in 2 minutes

- 1 minute log off timer if zombie has agro on player

- 2 minute log off timer if taken damage in 2 minutes

- 2 minute log off timer if used any action / weapon / item in 2 minutes

- 30 second MORE time if done aything above during the log off

+ show log off timer on player screen (if player still in game)

Because currently too many players escape all dangerous situations cheating the game and breaking the immersion!

I think that being offline should be considered as character is asleep. And it is really hard to instantly fall asleep if you are sneaking on NW airport and when the operation goes bad -> zZzZzZzz (character dissappears from the battlefield)

Other feedback:

This is the only exploit that bothers me currently, ALL the other serious exploits have been fixed really fast for my opinion :heart:

[Land Squid 22]

I may be a masochist, but after the suggestion of a log off delay, I think that would work nicely, but honestly it should be longer. Lets say someone snipes you, or you see someone and are trying to catch them but they are over a hill from you. How long is it going to really take for you to close distance with them? I know my character certainly can't sprint 4-500 meters in under 30 seconds.

I'd say one to two minutes for non-combat situations. If you want to quit normally, sit down, this will start a 1-2 minute timer. When it ends you can log off with no penalty (or you can stand up and carry on if you feel like it). If you just alt-f4, your char stands there with his thumb up his ass for the 1-2 minutes.

Now, if you are under combat (the little anti-disconnect warning is lit up on the right) the timer should not count down at all and if you alt-f4 it should be a full 10 minute penalty (why yes, I hate pvp-disconnectors, how'd you guess?) and it should scream to the whole damned server that you DC'd and the timer is running. (I also still think that anyone you killed before DC'ing should be restored to a previous save point as an additional penalty and to protect people from snipe-and-quit players.)

[man (DayZ) 0]

it seems to me the simplest abuse of this could be removed with a slight tweak to the master server synchronisation. like this: if a player disconnects, their last status is retained, then that is synchronised with the master db next time the server gets round to it. there should probably be a safety net with timestamps in case the server is very slow and the player has already joined another server since disconnecting.

of course there'd be ways around this, but it would deal with the most casual, alt + f4 after death, thing.