Player Spawn Mechanics To Reduce Server Hopping/Ghosting - Includes Working Example!

[Publik 404]

Solution for spawning players outside/inside of bases. Topic brought up here in relation to Rocket's talk today, and as promised here's a possible solution with workable prototype.

 

Basic idea:

• When a player spawns, they "drift" 1-2km away from their login point.
• This "drift" would only happen on joining a new server and when the timer would be applied.
• The drift is influenced by nearby players, if there are any. A nearby player will push the player's spawn position away, meaning players will not spawn on top of other players.
• If there are no players nearby, drift is in a random direction.
• This does not happen if the influencing player is on the spawning player's friends list.
• Zombies apply a smaller push than players.
• "Attractors" can be added (like camping parts, bases, vehicles, etc) that pull the player to spawn there.
• Attractors only apply if a player has interacted with that item (vehicles) or the player is on the friends list of the player that "owns" that item.
• Unaffiliated Attractors would severely push players away (someone else's base).

Attached is a zip with a simple mockup in Unity. Extract it to your desktop or wherever and open the .html file and everything should work.

• Click to place a repeller (player, zombie, etc)
• Shift Click to place an attractor (a base you're a part of)
• Click an attractor/repeller to remove it
• Escape clears both items
• Player would spawn in the green wedge.

Also included is the source, which can be opened as a project in Unity.

 

If a mod wants to sticky this or promote these kinds of suggestions (with code or prototypes) I'd be more than OK with that. Hint hint. Welp, I've got a game jam to run off to, ciao.

DayZ Spawn Mechanic.zip

DayZ Spawn Mechanic Source.zip

Edited March 29, 2014 by Publik

[Katana67 2907]

Question - Could the "drift" be used to potentially detect players or player structures if they're set as repellants?

 

For example, I log out near X on one server. I'm pushed closer to Y on another server. Therefore, there's something near X because I was pushed to Y.

[Publik 404]

Question - Could the "drift" be used to potentially detect players or player structures if they're set as repellants?

 

For example, I log out near X on one server. I'm pushed closer to Y on another server. Therefore, there's something near X because I was pushed to Y.

If there are no players, drift is random. There wouldn't be a way to tell if you were pushed because of a player or because it just happened to land there.

[Publik 404]

Quoted instead of edited lol

Edited March 29, 2014 by Publik

[BeefBacon 1185]

Couldn't hurt uploading a video or a gif of what you mean. I understood it from the description alone but having a visual representation without having to download things is always nice.

 

Anyway, I like it. Deters server hopping and ghosting in one fell swoop. Could be annoying for people who got kicked from their old server, though. I like being able to carry on from where I left off 30 seconds ago, and I'm likely to be pretty disorientated if I'm a kilometer away from where I was when I was last playing, so that's something that needs to be addressed.

 

And presumably the sea/ deep lakes will be out of bounds for getting pushed away? I don't much like the idea of having to swim to shore.

 

There's a few other problems that I can forsee, though I won't go into them, but I like the idea at it's core. Much less likely to penalise players that aren't hopping/ ghosting than some of the other suggestions.

[Publik 404]

Couldn't hurt uploading a video or a gif of what you mean. I understood it from the description alone but having a visual representation without having to download things is always nice.

 

Anyway, I like it. Deters server hopping and ghosting in one fell swoop. Could be annoying for people who got kicked from their old server, though. I like being able to carry on from where I left off 30 seconds ago, and I'm likely to be pretty disorientated if I'm a kilometer away from where I was when I was last playing, so that's something that needs to be addressed.

 

And presumably the sea/ deep lakes will be out of bounds for getting pushed away? I don't much like the idea of having to swim to shore.

 

There's a few other problems that I can forsee, though I won't go into them, but I like the idea at it's core. Much less likely to penalise players that aren't hopping/ ghosting than some of the other suggestions.

Will make a video later tonight. The download is 34kb or something, and the Unity Webplayer is lightweight as well and you can just uninstall it later.

 

As for your comments:

If you're kicked or otherwise rejoining, it wouldn't apply. Rocket had mentioned turning off the timer for relogs to the same server in the livestream today. 

 

Likely what would happen is it would pick a location within the direction of the push, and if that location is invalid (clipped inside of something, underwater, hazardous, etc) it would pick another one in that green wedge (which could be wider). 

 

Go ahead and get into the problems with it :P The better the idea can be whittled down the more likely we'll get a fix for it.

[JKS-Alex 79]

Yesterday Dean has said there will be areas where you can't login like players bases, so i hope they will add the same protection to the high loot areas like big cities and military areas, after all logout (camp) in dense zeds popoulated areas will be too risky and unrealistic

Edited March 29, 2014 by JKS-Alex

[Publik 404]

Yesterday Dean has said there will be areas where you can't login like players bases, so i hope they will add the same protection to the high loot areas like big cities and military areas, after all logout (camp) in dense zeds popoulated areas will be too risky and unrealistic

What would that do? Just prevent you from logging on to the base? What if I had a ton of time on my hands and hopped like mad and built bases everywhere?

I generally find Rocket & Co.'s solutions pretty bland.