Combatlogging, what it is, and how to prevent it

[phoboss 224]

So the forum is pretty much full with topics regarding combatlogging. People complaining about it, people using it and people trying to fix it.
For me combatlogging (and everything of the sort, ghosting, server hopping) are a major annoyance right now.
I know rocket is working to fix it, and maybe even has a solution ready to be implemented. The goal of this thread is to maybe help him with a couple of ideas to make the solutions as failsafe as possible. 
I read a lot in the forums about the topic and I'm going to try and merge the best ideas I found together into one giant combatlogging fixing juggernaut ;).

• First we must define what combatlogging is. Here's what I think. 
  
  Combatlogging is logging out of the game when your character is in danger of being detained, robbed, wounded or killed.
   
• Now in order to put a system in place which prevents players from combatlogging, we must determine when a player is actually at risk of becoming detained, robbed, wounded or killed (or in other words, is considered in combat)
  
  Number 1: Player is bleeding
  
  Number 2: Player is under attack either by
                 2.1) a zombie, which means he has alerted a zombie to his presence and said zombie is in pursuit or attacking the player.
                 2.2) another player, which means there was a hostile action towards the player (shots fired at or hit in a 100m radius around the player**), melee attack, the attempt to handcuff the player).
  
  Number 3: The player himself is attacking (again any kind of hostile action towards a zombie or another player like stated above)
  
  I think the "in combat state" should last 2 minutes. Meaning whenever one of the above 3 is true, there is a 2 minute timer for how long you are in combat.
  
  **There is one big problem with the "shots fired rule". How do you determine if the shots were meant for the player? You can either go by a given radius in which every shot fired would be considered a threat to the player, or by shots hit in the vicinity. In my opinion the first one is out of the question, because the radius would have to be to big (a sniper could in theory be shooting from 1km away). That leaves option 2, shots that hit or are shot in the vicinity of the player. I'd suggest a 100m radius. 
   
• Now that we've determined when a player is considered in combat, the next thing would be how to handle logging out. There are 2 states.
  
  The normal logout: The player wants to quit, goes into the menu, gets a 15 second timer and then hits "Exit". This has been proven functional in many DayZ mods and is, in my opinion absolutely reasonable. After that, your character just normally disappears. And you can switch the server if you like. But after the switch you get a 1 minute delay, which gets multiplied by the factor 2, before you can switch again. Which would mean you can switch once without a delay but after that every server switch the timer would get multiplied by 2. Adding up to a total of 15 minutes. (Also gets reset every 30 minutes. Meaning if you play on a server for 30 minutes your timer gets reset)
  You can rejoin the last server as often as you like, as long as you didn't change the server in between. After that, you're banned from your last server for 15 minutes. (This is to prevent ghosting while still allowing you to take a break for what ever reason)
  
  OR
  
  The combatlog: The player is considered in combat and logs out, hits ALT+F4, pulls his network cable or what ever else he might think of. Now the player goes into a surrender position for 2 minutes where he just stands there with his hands up. Now the other party has 2 minutes to either shoot him or handcuff him (during this time the combatlogger is locked out from joining ANY server.This is to prevent him from coming back and shooting the other party while they are on the way over to handcuff him, and to prevent duplication of the items when he joins another server). If they handcuff him, they get a 5 minute time frame in which they can do what ever they want to him and the combatlogger gets logged back into the same server if he tries to join another server (this is so he can take back control of his character and continue playing it if he chooses).
  
  
   

Like I said I combined many ideas I heard or read about in the last couple of days. And this is to be seen as a suggestion to the dev team as to how they can effectively prevent combatlogging, server hopping and ghosting. 
Some of it might seem a little harsh, like not being able to go to a different server for a total of 7 minutes after you combatlog. But you have to understand that combat and PvP is a big part of this game, and for many people the main reason to play. And because of this, there needs to be a punishment if you cheat other other players of the experience by just leaving the game. 

I hope you guys like it.
 
Cheers!


Edit: Added ghosting solution.
Edit2: Added an idea Mr. Hyde had on Page 4 of this thread.
 
 

I'd like to add my 2 cents here. Solutions i support:
A-a timer of 1 min, no matter what
B-when you want to log out, the line "preparing extraction" appears then you have to reach a spot X(maybe 200?) meters away from you in a random direction. You will have some kind of tool(an arrow?) to guide you. You may add a little timer(15-30sec?) at the beginning or at the end of the process. Extraction can be aborted, if you retry to log out you will have to repeat the whole process (a new extraction point will be randomly chosen).
 
Solution B supports tension, no camping and it's easy to implement. It preserves the survival spirit of Dayz while enhancing your gaming experience and dealing with combat loggers as well.

I actually like solution B a lot, because it's very "simple". You want to log out? Fine by me, just run "here" and you can leave. It certainly would need some fine tuning, like give you a radius of X meters in which you can log out, so you can find a bush or something safe to log out. But in general a really great idea and it fixes a lot of problems. 
Thanks again for sharing Mr. Hye

Edited January 21, 2014 by phoboss

[frosti 2165]

There is about 50 threads about combat logging, and on mod forum probably 500 threads.

 

But one more is good I guess, maybe it will be fixed lol, like in DayZero mod.

[phoboss 224]

There is about 50 threads about combat logging, and on mod forum probably 500 threads.

 

But one more is good I guess, maybe it will be fixed lol, like in DayZero mod.

Well with 500.000 people playing this game its pretty normal that things get discussed over and over again. And I would just ask that you take 5 minutes to actually read my post, and then give your opinion about the topic and not the fact that it's the millionth post about it.

[frosti 2165]

My opinion is that best anti-combat loging system was done in DayZero mod.

 

Log out timer always when you want to log out - 30 seconds - if you disconect or decide to log out without waiting - your character dummy is spawned for 2 minutes and can be killed.

[phoboss 224]

That is pretty close to what I'm suggesting. The problem with the DayZero solution is, you can just hide for 30 seconds and avoid combat that way. As I'm sure you're aware of, combat in DayZ is much slower than it is in other shooters. Meaning I could shoot at you, and you run for cover. I wait a couple of seconds to see what your next move is, then decide to advance on your location. By the time I get there, you could've logged out in those 30 seconds. 

[Bakercompany86 347]

Personally, any shots fired regardless of target should engage the combat timer.

 

 

As far as the time to remain in world on a disconnect (which would become the new combat logging if they implemented the rest of your ideas), I think 30 seconds to a minute would be more appropriate.  When they fix bodies, provided you kill the person you'd have all the time in the world to loot it.  But for the people who literally have crappy internet connections, I'd hate for them to persist in game for multiple minutes to be eaten by a zombie just because their ISP sucks.  30 to 60 seconds in a high pressure situation is a looooong time.

 

However your ideas are solid and I like them.  That would remedy server hoppers and combat loggers.  I especially like your timer build-up idea for logging in and out of servers, including the 30 minute reset.

 

Great ideas, beans for you.

[OneNips 0]

Well with 500.000 people playing this game its pretty normal that things get discussed over and over again. And I would just ask that you take 5 minutes to actually read my post, and then give your opinion about the topic and not the fact that it's the millionth post about it.

Not going to read just going to say eve online ended combat loging and seeing as dayz devs talked to ccp well atleast i think they did there going to put somthing like that in atleast i hope

[phoboss 224]

Personally, any shots fired regardless of target should engage the combat timer.

But in what radius and for how long? 

 

 

As far as the time to remain in world on a disconnect (which would become the new combat logging if they implemented the rest of your ideas), I think 30 seconds to a minute would be more appropriate.  When they fix bodies, provided you kill the person you'd have all the time in the world to loot it.  But for the people who literally have crappy internet connections, I'd hate for them to persist in game for multiple minutes to be eaten by a zombie just because their ISP sucks.  30 to 60 seconds in a high pressure situation is a looooong time.

The Problem with the crappy internet is something I thought pretty hard on for a while, maybe they could be safe from zombies if the actually have disconnect? Sure they could always pull the network cable if attacked by zombies, but who'd go through that much trouble to avoid zombies? And if they did, fine, if you want to play the game that way. It doesn't affect me. 

And I also remember rocket talking about the possibility of the zombies in the vicinity of your character being safed as well when logging out. That way, if you have a disc, you're safe from the zeds until you log back in :)

Edited December 28, 2013 by phoboss

[Firstbornchicken 34]

Why go to such an extent instead of just adding a 1 minute logout timer?

 

If you give the person a whole minute to stand still and logout, you don't deserve the kill, regardless of how cowardly the logger might be.

[frosti 2165]

That is pretty close to what I'm suggesting. The problem with the DayZero solution is, you can just hide for 30 seconds and avoid combat that way. As I'm sure you're aware of, combat in DayZ is much slower than it is in other shooters. Meaning I could shoot at you, and you run for cover. I wait a couple of seconds to see what your next move is, then decide to advance on your location. By the time I get there, you could've logged out in those 30 seconds. 

 

Then increase log out timer to 5 minutes and spawned dummy to 10 minutes.

 

Only players that will be aganist it are combat loggers.

[Xequinox90 80]

Good ideas an all but I think dev team already have this covered

[Bakercompany86 347]

But in what radius and for how long? 

 

 

The Problem with the crappy internet is something I thought pretty hard on for a while, maybe they could be safe from zombies if the actually have disconnect? Sure they could always pull the network cable if attacked by zombies, but who'd go through that much trouble to avoid zombies? And if they did, fine, if you want to play the game that way. It doesn't affect me. 

 

I meant any shots YOU fire, would engage your timer.  People shooting at you should not engage your timer for a few reasons.  If they HIT you it should definitely engage the timer.

I say that people shooting at you shouldn't engage it for 2 reasons off the top of my head:

1.  People could shoot at you from a ridiculous range (700m to 1km for example) just to keep you in combat.

2. People not shooting at you, but at zombies or another player, shouldn't engage your timer.  Only damage should engage it if you're not the one shooting.

 

That coupled with your anti-server hopping idea would be really solid I think.  I can't really think of too many ways the above could be exploited.

 

 

Actually it's not a bad idea at all to have dc'ed players immune to zombies or at least invisible to them.  Yeah it could potentially be exploited by someone who attracted a horde.  But if you fired a shot to attract said horde, your logout timer would be engaged regardless.  So actually the most it could be exploited against is single zombie aggro.  OR, that immunity could only be implemented if you DC before you aggro zombies.  So if you have one chasing you, and you DC'ed, it would still be able to hurt you.  Yeah some players would be affected by bad ISP's this way, but it would at least be minimal.

Edited December 28, 2013 by Bakercompany86

[phoboss 224]

Then increase log out timer to 5 minutes and spawned dummy to 10 minutes.

 

Only players that will be aganist it are combat loggers.

Not true, I'd be very much against that. And I hate combatloggers just as much as I hate cheaters/hackers.

There are literally  a million reasons why I might have to log out at some point during playing. And then just standing there for 5-15 minutes is way to long. Players, zombies or (maybe in the future) even wild animals could come by and kill me and all because I had to take a shit? Nope, way to simple.

[dayzhopeful 30]

That is pretty close to what I'm suggesting. The problem with the DayZero solution is, you can just hide for 30 seconds and avoid combat that way. As I'm sure you're aware of, combat in DayZ is much slower than it is in other shooters. Meaning I could shoot at you, and you run for cover. I wait a couple of seconds to see what your next move is, then decide to advance on your location. By the time I get there, you could've logged out in those 30 seconds. 

Then that is fair and people should change up their play style for that, so if you hit someone, he hides and you feel he is going to logout you must go in for the kill or risk losing the hunt. I think that solution would work perfectly.

Edited December 28, 2013 by dayzhopeful

[Renji121 11]

I hate combatloggers, think its cowardly and noobish, i'm to the point where i don't care if i die, and plus you don't get the feel of success if you kill the people who tried to kill you.

[frosti 2165]

Not true, I'd be very much against that. And I hate combatloggers just as much as I hate cheaters/hackers.

There are literally  a million reasons why I might have to log out at some point during playing. And then just standing there for 5-15 minutes is way to long. Players, zombies or (maybe in the future) even wild animals could come by and kill me and all because I had to take a shit? Nope, way to simple.

 

I think people will combat log on you 1000 times every time you will have to take emergency shit during play and die on 5 min. log out timer for that reason.

 

Let's be honest, combat logging is a plague that ruins game and need to be dealt with.

 

When there is no combat loging game looks totally different, like DayZero gamplay was totally different compared to DayZ. becouse of non-existent combat log problem.

[phoboss 224]

I think people will combat log on you 1000 times every time you will have to take emergency shit during play and die on 5 min. log out timer for that reason.

 

Let's be honest, combat logging is a plague that ruins game and need to be dealt with.

 

When there is no combat loging game looks totally different, like DayZero gamplay was totally different compared to DayZ. becouse of non-existent combat log problem.

100% agreed. Like I said, combatlogging is basically like cheating to me. They are the worst players!

[Bakercompany86 347]

100% agreed. Like I said, combatlogging is basically like cheating to me. They are the worst players!

 

Completely agree.

 

Server hopping and combat logging is indeed exploiting a flaw in the game.  Thus = cheating.

 

When it's remedied...we can all rejoice :)

[phoboss 224]

I hope they implement a solution fast. had such a great pvp experience today. the first one in over 50 hours played without anyone combatlogging or ghosting. 

wish their would be more of those :)

[The_Lungy 3]

Personally, any shots fired regardless of target should engage the combat timer.

 

 

As far as the time to remain in world on a disconnect (which would become the new combat logging if they implemented the rest of your ideas), I think 30 seconds to a minute would be more appropriate.  When they fix bodies, provided you kill the person you'd have all the time in the world to loot it.  But for the people who literally have crappy internet connections, I'd hate for them to persist in game for multiple minutes to be eaten by a zombie just because their ISP sucks.  30 to 60 seconds in a high pressure situation is a looooong time.

 

However your ideas are solid and I like them.  That would remedy server hoppers and combat loggers.  I especially like your timer build-up idea for logging in and out of servers, including the 30 minute reset.

 

Great ideas, beans for you.

If they have a low internet connection, why are they playing DayZ?

They could either pay for a better internet connection, join a closer server, or don't play at all.

~Just my 2 cents

[Ugly (DayZ) 79]

I am absolutely against the idea of a timer to log out. HATED it in D3. I can't come up with another solution. Perhaps a 30 sec timer before rejoining a server?

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Needlessly complex. Why does it matter if the player is actually in combat or not? Just add a 45s log out timer that applies no matter what and gets interrupted by damage or action. It's not a difficult problem to fix.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

I am absolutely against the idea of a timer to log out. HATED it in D3. I can't come up with another solution. Perhaps a 30 sec timer before rejoining a server?

 

How does that in any way solve the problem? The point is to stop people from dropping out to save their lives, and this will definitely not accomplish that.

[phoboss 224]

Needlessly complex. Why does it matter if the player is actually in combat or not? Just add a 45s log out timer that applies no matter what and gets interrupted by damage or action. It's not a difficult problem to fix.

Because I believe the timer should be  longer if you're actually in combat. 

 

 

I am absolutely against the idea of a timer to log out. HATED it in D3. I can't come up with another solution. Perhaps a 30 sec timer before rejoining a server?

This would not help against combatlogging. In D3, it was there for basically the same reason. so you couldn't avoid death by just logging out. For normal mode, it was rather irrelevant, but on hardcore it would've removed the danger of dying. 

Same goes for DayZ. So if you hate it, I have bad news for you, it will definitely be implemented eventually. No way around it. 

Edited January 15, 2014 by phoboss

[scull 11]

Oh my god another thread on this. Rocket knows how to stop this problem he's played eve online as he mentioned before dayz was released that he was going to break up the map onto different servers like eve. So I'm sure he's going to add a 5 minute logout timer so character just stays in game for 5 minutes and can be killed so you have to get safe before you log. Now just let rocket and his team get on with it and everyone stop moaning.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Scull