military gears and weapons / possible solution to server hopping

[daisho 74]

First off: I'm well aware that a lot of people won't agree with me on this topic. Maybe we can get a productive discussion going though <3 ...

 

The way the looting-system for military gears and weapons is working at the moment is not only pretty unrealistic but also favors those, who seem to have no intention to play a survival-horror game and rather farm-hop servers or run private servers to gear up fast and go PVP.

 

This thread ain't about playing styles, heroes, kosers or pvpers, I guess we all agree that every single playingstyle is totally legit and has it's place in this game.

 

The problem though is server hopping:

Not only these people don't actually play the game, they make it even harder for everyone who wants to play this game "properly" (as in, enjoy the journey, play a survival game, dont rush to a military farm to gear up just to then start a killing spree because you are bored).

 

I just can tell about my personal experience on my current character. I have 2-3 servers I play on on a regular basis, 2 of them are low pop servers, one is 40/40 most of the times and I don't hop servers, because it would mess up the whole survival aspect for the game for me.

 

When I run to some military base or an airfield and stuff is looted already, so be it, bad luck, gotta check somewhere else for the stuff I need then. The problem is: on my current character, I hardly ever find anything in a military base whenever I get there, there's just 4-6 people on the server and server got restarted like 30min before, yet no worthy leftovers to collect whatsoever. Bad luck I guess. It took me like 10-15hrs to finally find a M4 (which I only got because the server was restarting the moment I've entered the base) and -oh look at that- everything I needed was available. Assault vest, meds, M4, some ammo...and thats not how the looting system should work if you ask me. I shouldn't have been so lucky to get fully geared just because I was at the right point at the right time.

 

Possible solution:

Make all loot random, everything can spawn everywhere, including all kind of military equip.

I'm not saying to increase the amount of military equip in any way, rather make them more rare and harder to find.

Those who actually play the game and wander around looking for loot in every city should get rewarded and not "punished"  and those who decide to just server hopp over and over to gear up: well, tough luck now.

 

Advantages I see:

1) server hopping totally will be obsolete when you have spawnpoints completely randomized

2) players can get found all across the map, so more thrill when roaming areas that are not the few hotzones like military bases, airfields, elektro and so on, hence more thrill and paranoia for everyone, isn't that what we're here for?

3) gearing up would be way harder, people would have to deal with the survival aspect and maybe would act accordingly even when they not fully geared up yet  (i.e. try to stay alive because it would take way longer to get geared up again/ get pristine gears again)

4) it would have way more of an atmosphere of heading into the unknown as it would be completely unpredictable where you'd meet what kind of people with what kind of equipment on what kind of mission.

 

Two birds with one stone and it would make stuff so much more exciting if you ask me.

 

Realism

Some people might come up with the "that's not realistic" argument and if you ask me, the way it is at the moment is not realistic at all, so don't fool yourself.

 

1) Given the setting, military must have been all over the place to restore order.

There is no way all Zed'ed-up soldiers ran back to their military base to drop their weapons and then ran back again to whatever place they are roaming around.

2) whats with the crashed military cars and trucks in the cities? Soldiers operating these vehicles left their base unarmed?

3) I'm pretty sure some citizens were panicing that much when hell break lose that they overpowered any military personal/ convoy out of pure desperation. Where are these weapons?

4) not only mentioning all those soldiers that got killed in action while trying to fight off the apocalypse, I doubt they did it with their bare hands.

 

Again: I don't want to see any more weapons in game, rather reduce the amount and randomize the loot-areas to make them harder to find.

Edited March 10, 2014 by daisho

[Leo Balzac 190]

random loot would be quite fun. It would make people spread out across the map more, but you'll get a lot of pushback from the 'veterans' as they do not like change.

 

[enforcer1975 1111]

If someone hops into a server in the key locations remove all loot for the next 30-45 ( random countdown ) minutes to discourage farming.

Edited March 10, 2014 by Enforcer

[daisho 74]

If someone hops into a server in the key locations remove all loot for the next 30-45 ( random countdown ) minutes to discourage farming.

 

That would be too drastic imho and badmins still could bypass the system:

1) Server admins still could restart servers to get farmed up

2) Server admins could kick peple who farm military bases, what would make them get no loot even on the next server they log in (same goes for regular server restarts and disconnects)

3) it also would punish people to walk the whole way to the key location and then can't farm anything because someone else spawned in there

Edited March 10, 2014 by daisho

[kOepi (DayZ) 35]

life is unfair, that is realistic.
a survivor who is surviving on his own is in most cases outnumbered and outgunned, in comparison
to a group of players who take what they want.
the only realistic approach for you to have a change is to group up with other survivors, instead of
changing the game towards a lone wolf style.
randomizing the loot will give you more chances to run into desirable loot, but
running into a group of server hopping bandits will increase aswell on every
location.
so staying out of cities wouldnt make you safer anymore.

a single person has on the survival aspects mainly disadvantages.

I am one of those PvP players who gear up quickly, join
often restarting servers, but I am aware of the risk and
it pisses me off, that I collect like 500 rounds of 556
before I eventually find an M4. on a side note.

good hunting.

[daisho 74]

life is unfair, that is realistic.

a survivor who is surviving on his own is in most cases outnumbered and outgunned, in comparison

to a group of players who take what they want.

the only realistic approach for you to have a change is to group up with other survivors, instead of

changing the game towards a lone wolf style.

randomizing the loot will give you more chances to run into desirable loot, but

running into a group of server hopping bandits will increase aswell on every

location.

so staying out of cities wouldnt make you safer anymore.

a single person has on the survival aspects mainly disadvantages.

I am one of those PvP players who gear up quickly, join

often restarting servers, but I am aware of the risk and

it pisses me off, that I collect like 500 rounds of 556

before I eventually find an M4. on a side note.

good hunting.

 

 

I can't say I get any of your arguments to be honest:

1) the way it is at the moment it favors lonewolfing way more than anything else as there is no urge at all to team up or even communicate with people.

2) randomizing loot wouldn't give me more chances to run into desirable loot either, actually: the exact opposite would happen unlike the way we have it now what makes it pretty easy to run into desirable loot.

3) there would be no server-hopping bandits anymore as there wouldn't be any point of server-hopping anymore.

4) as said: I'm not talking about "having it safe", I rather have more paranoia, more thrill and less predicatable situations and areas all over the map and not only in the key areas.

Edited March 10, 2014 by daisho

[cav_guy 62]

daisho - you make a good point.  I think a lot of this will be fixed when a couple of things Rocket has stated are coming make it into the game:  loot re-spawns and a reduction in the amount of military grade gear.  I also think that some of the loot spawn points a bugged right now, so when that's fixed we'll all have more places to search.

 

This won't completely kill server hopping but I think it will balance the game out for people who don't.  I think the login timeout is a good start on getting rid of server hopping. I'm not sure if the debs can do much more without breaking the experience for everyone.

[taco86 156]

Just have the majority of "Good loot" have varying delayed spawn time (minimum of 15 min, max of like 2-3 hours) after a server restarts...  That alone will outright kill the majority of server hopping.

[oregonized 673]

Server hoppers are one of the reasons there are new buildings showing up in towns.  Most towns now have the new police stations which guarantees a weapon 9 out of 10 times and you can get any weapon in the game from there.  We are still very early in the alpha phase and we do not know exactly what the developers have planned as far as changes go.  Give it time and things will be changed for the better.

Edited March 10, 2014 by OR3GONIZ3D

[daisho 74]

Just have the majority of "Good loot" have varying delayed spawn time (minimum of 15 min, max of like 2-3 hours) after a server restarts...  That alone will outright kill the majority of server hopping.

People will still keep hopping server, it'll just take them a bit longer to get all gear they want. Badmins still can restart-farm. And most server I've come across so far have a restart timer of 2-3 hours anyways.

I see your point, it would make everyone to get a piece of the cake and not first comes first served, but it still wouldn't recude the comforts/ advantages of server-hopping imho.

[Bombhead 1]

Just make that character and their equipment stay on the server and when you hop to a new server you respawn with nothing. Each server will have a record of what you had the last time you were on it and thats what you start off with.

 

I am not a programmer, so I have no idea how easy or hard this would be, but it seems a fix to me?

[taco86 156]

Just make that character and their equipment stay on the server and when you hop to a new server you respawn with nothing.

 

 

This is the private hive solution that is imo, the only "True" fix.  This would also solve the "Ghosting" problem that seems to be getting more and more common as well.

[cels 43]

I still think a good fix would be if you leave the original server you are on for a separate server. You should be spawned randomly on the map.. Do it too many times, you become a fresh spawn on the beach..

Just the issue I see now and will always see is even with loot respawning.. People will still sit at the military base and wait out the current timer and just server hop. They would do the same thing no matter where they are at compared to actually traveling somewhere else.

On top of this reason on why I like it, theres also the issue soon to be coming with base building..

Now, anyone knows from the DayZ mod that if you saw a tent with a bunch of barbed wire around it.. The easiest way to get to the tent is remembering the exact spot and just going to that spot on a different server then relogging back into where the tent is, putting you inside the barbed wire.. This is going to be a issue with base building that is also going to definitely need a fix.. Otherwise whats the point of building a base if someone can easily enough get inside it? Ill just stick with hiding tents in the forest.

To me, this fixes ghosting, server hopping, and getting inside bases once they are implemented..

[Irish. 4886]

I still do not get why people server hop.. It takes almost the same amount of time to run to a new town as it does to wait for the relog timer. And if you just keep moving, you end up with better loot chances and variation. Last night I ran from spawn point, to NWAF in a rather straight line and by the time I finished looting the NWAF I was absolutely fully geared. 35/40 hardcore server.. so no reason why people cant get the same results. 

[sikaknight 8]

Only way to fix server hopping is to make loot respawning. I think most people are server hopping because of the low chances of finding anything at all.

[LeChat 131]

If you make loot harder to obtain, more people will server hop. Just find a spot which is remote and has multiple spawn points in a short radius and start hopping, eventually you'll get what you want (not promoting server hopping, just illustrating how you'd do if all loot was random). Respawning loot, less ammunition (which will probably be the case when it comes to adding more firearms that need different types of ammunition), more and generally tougher zombies and zombies spawning inside buildings is probably the way I'd go to try and reduce server hopping. In other words, make some things harder to obtain by placing 'obstacles' in areas with more 'desirable' loot, making the risk of obtaining that pristine ACOG (or whatever you're looking for when you're hopping) greater. Right now if you're 'unlucky' and you fire your gun at an airfield all you're going to get is 4-6 zombies after you, all of them goes down with one shot (more or less), increasing the number of zombies twofold (or more) and increasing the amount of damage they can withstand would probably make you think twice before you decide to start server hopping and wasting ammunition and potentially hurting yourself in the process.

[Highlander007 249]

life is unfair, that is realistic.

a survivor who is surviving on his own is in most cases outnumbered and outgunned, in comparison

to a group of players who take what they want.

the only realistic approach for you to have a change is to group up with other survivors, instead of

changing the game towards a lone wolf style.

randomizing the loot will give you more chances to run into desirable loot, but

running into a group of server hopping bandits will increase aswell on every

location.

so staying out of cities wouldnt make you safer anymore.

a single person has on the survival aspects mainly disadvantages.

I am one of those PvP players who gear up quickly, join

often restarting servers, but I am aware of the risk and

it pisses me off, that I collect like 500 rounds of 556

before I eventually find an M4. on a side note.

good hunting.

If you run with the clan, you can trade guns within the clan too.

[daisho 74]

If you make loot harder to obtain, more people will server hop. Just find a spot which is remote and has multiple spawn points in a short radius and start hopping,

 

It still would be a difference to deal with the cooldown without knowing if you can get ANY of the loot you want or if you server hopp and know you will get ALL of the loot you want.

 

Only way to fix server hopping is to make loot respawning. I think most people are server hopping because of the low chances of finding anything at all.

 

The loot in the coast area is bugged at the moment afaik and they working to fix this.

As said: I in no way would appreciate to have faster respawns and hence more loot in the game, there is no point in everyone running around fully geared and playing deathmatch.

I wouldn't mind if people engage each other with just a crowbar and axe If they feel like doing so, but farmhopping servers, get a mosin with a LRS and then sit somewhere and just camp it out "because its fun" really shouldn't be the road us players should head to/ aim for.

 

Anyone can explain what "private hubs" exactly are? I always thought it would be some kind of "private servers" and don't see how this would fix the problem.. Tks in advance.

[LigerRider 82]

What if, in some way, the game tracks server lists and cross references them with your steam friend's list? If someone joins three servers in 10 minutes with no other friends on, obviously there's some hopping going on, and that person can be given a decently (but realistic) wait time before switching servers again. However, I change servers frequently when joining up with different friends, that is the reason for the cross referencing with a friends list. 

 

Obviously not perfect, maybe there is a group of server hoppers. But it could reduce the amount.

[enforcer1975 1111]

life is unfair, that is realistic.

 

So for you someone who hops and grabs your stuff from your server it is fair and "realistic"? Never heard of a dimension hopper yet...

[Wyrmgol 26]

OP - People will still go to empty servers.  Their intention is to gear up with little to no risk.

If you made the spawns random they would still be bypassing content (other players).

 

The only thing that could truly solve the problem is the binding of characters to servers.

(private hives)

Edited March 11, 2014 by Wyrmgol

[daisho 74]

OP - People will still go to empty servers.  Their intention is to gear up with little to no risk.

If you made the spawns random they would still be bypassing content (other players).

 

The only thing that could truly solve the problem is the binding of characters to servers.

(private hives)

 

I don'tm mind people going on low pop servers it's a legit playing style (maybe they had a hard and shitty day on work and just want to play in peace w/o looking for some trouble, or they a re new and wanna learn basic mechanics before hopping on a more crowded server).

Server hoppers can roam around low pop servers t gear up, totally fine if you ask me as they still would have to move around, would put themselves at risk of getting attacked doing so and could not just teleport from base to base and would be FULLY geared up with EVERYTHING they want in less than 30 minutes.

 

And with later versions/ patches etc more players will play the game either new players or returning players that are on a break at the moment due to low concent., so  empty and/ or "low pop" then most likely will be hard to find anyways.

 

I'm not saying that my suggesstion would deal 100% with any kind of "misbehaviour" but it would be a good start at least.

 

 

/edit:

just asking for clarification:

private hive then means you only can play one character in total that is bound to one server or would you have different charcters on every server you played on?

Edited March 11, 2014 by daisho

[Wyrmgol 26]

You would have a different character on each server.

 

Going to a low population server to gear up risk free and then moving to a high population server is similar to server-hopping in that it allows you to bypass/reduce the risk.

Most server hopping takes place on low-pop servers anyway.

 

I have nothing against someone learning the basics on low-pop servers, especially since there is no tutorial. 

With private hives you can log in at non-peak hours and enjoy similar freedom to learn mechanics etc

 

Edit: With private hives you could still go to low-pop servers and casually play around/learn/gear up.  the only thing you wouldn't be able to do is then take that risk-free geared player to another server and compete on the same level with someone who endured the risk for that same gear.

Edited March 11, 2014 by Wyrmgol

[daisho 74]

Private hives sound like a neat solution too, is this cofirmed to get implemented yet or just another suggestion that got made by the community?

[Zjasuu 337]

Easiest way to fix server hopping is simply to allow a player to join only 1 server per 1 hour. If you join a server you can't join another server before a hour has passed. Simple as that.