One Idea to Fix Them All (D'Cing in combat, server hopping, relogging to move)

[liquidje 38]

So rather than put yourself out for a short moment and watch a timer whilst logging out' date=' you'd rather have development time and effort put into coding a whole new convulted flagging procedure. Wow. Just wow.

...

Completely different? No doubt once your flagging system has been written you'd be posting asking for another system to developed to deal with server hopping. Consider timers for just one moment, you'll see its a simple solution and most importantly ALREADY exists in the game!

[/quote']

Wow. Just wow. You are commenting in some system I did not even come up with. I commented with the same things as you, as evidently in these posts:

http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=23764&pid=212681#pid212681

http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=23764&pid=212975#pid212975

I actually tried to come up with another system. All I'm saying is that people (especially small groups) which have some waiting mechanism will just wait if the time allows it. Even so, the second part you quote is actually me saying my system (note: not the flagging system, see my links above) does not take into account loot hopping, as it is mainly based on whether you are shooting or are being shot at, or being attacked by zombies.

Also, just read my fucking posts. You did not understand my posts at all. I don't care waiting for a timer of 1 minute of that takes care of ragequiters. All I'm saying is that 1 minute is not enough for loot hopping. So we can increase it to 5 or 10 (which I consider not a short moment), but that will be quite annoying for survivors.

Simply put: too low of a time does not demotivate rage-quiters, too high of a time would annoy survivors.

Really, don't comment on a post if you did read it completely. You are only focusing on 5% of my post :S

[murhis 4]

@murhis:

What I am able to read from in between your lines is that you want to redefine the 'hostile' tag' date=' so that it depends on actions taken. I'm up for that.

[/quote']

That's exactly what I was after. So basically if you shoot/swing axe/crowbar you get a 'hostile' tag on you for a specific period. Like that 5 minutes I suggested.

How about firing a gun marks everyone as hostile to you' date=' and you as hostile to them? Do you think that would work better when compared to defaulting everyone to hostile?

(This would prevent ppl from d'cing upon hearing gunfire, I guess.)[/quote']

That's not actually a bad idea. But perhaps hearing a gun shot shouldn't give you that long DC prevention as actually performing the hostile action.

[falken_uk 0]

I don't care waiting for a timer of 1 minute of that takes care of ragequiters

Simply put: too low of a time does not demotivate rage-quiters, too high of a time would annoy survivors.

You're contradicting yourself. Would it annoy YOU? I fail to see how you can speak for everyone else when you say it will 'annoy survivors'. It certainly wouldn't annoy me :)

[BL1P 252]

1 char per server

Bleeding while ofline

All dc and server hopping problems fixed

[KWilt 157]

@KWilt:

I said that the 1km is only an example and even with that' date=' you need only head away from a town for 5 minutes. And you also completely choose to ignore what I said about friendlies.

[/quote']

Ah. Sorry about that. I did miss that part about friendlies. Though, we'll have to wait to see what Rocket does with groups to even think about implementing this idea.

[liquidje 38]

I don't care waiting for a timer of 1 minute of that takes care of ragequiters

Simply put: too low of a time does not demotivate rage-quiters' date=' too high of a time would annoy survivors.[/quote']

You're contradicting yourself. Would it annoy YOU? I fail to see how you can speak for everyone else when you say it will 'annoy survivors'. It certainly wouldn't annoy me :)

No I'm not. Goddamn it READ my COMPLETE post. You focus on TWO sentences. The first one you quote is followed up by:

I don't care waiting for a timer of 1 minute of that takes care of ragequiters. All I'm saying is that 1 minute is not enough for loot hopping.

I will explain one last time.

Short cooldown time (for example 15 seconds, a minute) means:

+ survivors are not irritated by the system

- loot hoppers will not be demotivated enough: they probably don't care about waiting for a few seconds or even a few minutes.

Long cooldown time (for example 15 seconds, a minute) means:

+ Loot hoppers will be more demotivated to conduct their business

- survivors are irritated by the system

At what point a short time becomes long is debatable, the point is there is some trade-off and I heavily question there is a decent trade-off to achieve both goals (not pissing off survivors, but prohibiting loot hopping).

It certainly wouldn't annoy me :)

There will be a point at which even you will be annoyed. This is different per player and could be analyzed. However, I think you AT LEAST need 5 or 10 minutes to demotivate loot hoppers enough (as for example 15 seconds or a minute is not that long of a time to wait), but waiting 10 minutes can be extremely annoying for some survivors. Whether these are 5% of the survivors or 50% I don't know, and at what "share of survivors" we give a fuck I don't know either. But I think that there is no cooldown to achieve both goals. (not pissing off survivors, but prohibiting loot hopping).

And please for the love of God, Allah, Biggie, Elvis or what other being you worship, READ MY FREAKING POSTS BEFORE COMMENTING AND SAYING I AM CONTRADICTING.

[falken_uk 0]

There will be a point at which even you will be annoyed

Please do go ahead and continue to speak for me and the rest of the DayZ community.

I enjoy the pace of DayZ. As its a 'slow burn' game, waiting a few minutes or so to disconnect won't phase me as. Just alt-tab and carry on with something else.

[Izziee 128]

Your self entitled pro fix is a really silly idea. Others have pointed out why. Building it up with a huge story and really unneeded tit bits then coming out with that?

10 second log out is a much better idea really, people just disconnect in front of you, and it works both ways! It's not always the person shooting and missing disconnecting, it's often the people YOU'RE shooting at, they can't just stop and disconnect in front of you, half the issue gone right there.

[liquidje 38]

There will be a point at which even you will be annoyed

Please do go ahead and continue to speak for me and the rest of the DayZ community.

I enjoy the pace of DayZ. As its a 'slow burn' game' date=' waiting a few minutes or so to disconnect won't phase me as. Just alt-tab and carry on with something else.

[/quote']

Fuck it, I'm done. Either you don't understand my post, or you really don't take the time to read it, or you are a troll. Yeah, again I'm speaking for you. If you read my post, I clearly state that some point will eventually be reached. Not at a few minutes, but how about 10? Or 20? Or 30? or 60? Or 2 hours? I don't care, this is explained in my post in detail, but still you seem to take a post of 20 sentenced and just focus on half a sentence.

I'm out.

And please don't confuse me with TS. Even so, though his idea was not that great, at least he contributes to some form of discussion and does not take some tl;dr approach.

[naizarak 41]

way too complicated. i'd like a "sleep" system personally.

[PintOfBass 0]

This does not affect server hopping for position. It seems that it would result in way more honest player frustration then frustration from people who are abusing the things you mean to prevent. I agree with you that these things are an issue, some more then others by a wide margin, but the fix should have minimal impact on honest play, this does not make the cut.

[Shorttallguy 3]

i had a similar idea and i posted it on another thread not sure if i should repost it here or not as well soooo... i will. mine is much more simple and better imo.

my counter to your idea is the idea to have it so there is a LONG time limit till your character is logged off. Say 5, 10, 20 ,30mins or even longer your character will remain in game leaving them vulnerable to any passing zombie or player. This way it solves multiple problems. You can't log in to other servers cause you're still on one PLUS you wont be able to log out to avoid dying. If you get disconnected you will still be able to play because you're character is still on that server and you can return, but only to that server not to any other. Some times people just have to go so let them close the program but let them know their character will persist in the world for a time period leaving them vulnerable. players would have to be specially careful to find a safe place to log off this way.

the only down sides to my idea are the strain on the server side and people getting killed while logged off. As for people getting killed while logged off, you can justify it by having it be like real life sleep. you have to sleep in real life and you are vulnerable in your sleep. in real zombie apocalypse you would be sure to find a VERY safe sleeping area. I'm not sure about the server strain though. I'm sure it can be solved though.

[eero.afheurlin@iki.fi 0]

First of all a few definitions, I'm thinking of two timers and mainly talking about one:

1. Clean logout timer (tuning this to make logging out from a fight or server hopping for looting is going to be hard but IMO we should start with something like a minute and then start tuning, I like the idea of being able to reset this countdown by moving, no need to broadcast the countdowns or resets)

2. "alt-f4 timer" or "unclean logout": no matter if it's due to connection loss or game crash or game quit, any loss of connection without logging off properly should cause server to trigger a long (3-5 minutes) timer while the character is still spawned and vulnerable.

I fail to see the problem with having a long timer on alt-f4.

Back in the days when 14.4k modems were the hottest shit I was playing some MUDs with PvP and losing connection basically meant you died unless you were hiding (should your characters hide skill be suitably high...) or in safe area. Now getting disconnected was easy, someone lifting up the phone in another room -> connection gets fscked to hell (I used to disconnect all the phones to avoid that particular mistake...), also modems being modems and the ISP being less than 100% reliable it wasn't that rare to get a random disconnect, we lived (or died) with it. It might have been annoying to die like that but it definitely was not "unfair".

Power cuts: you should have UPS anyway for both your computer and the cable-modem, they *do not* like their power abruptly cut. the ISP has UPSes in their end so this is not a problem at all unless you're being stupidly careless with your expensive equipment (if you can't get to a relatively safe place to log out in the 7-15minutes that is the usual minimum runtime then I guess life is tough, it's not an automatic death however...)

ISP random failure: This is very rare, if not you need to switch ISPs or live with the consequences of the disconnection timers.

Game random crash: It's alpha, it might crash, no different dying because of some other random bug (except you might not die, maybe zombie oes not find you, maybe a friendly player finds you, maybe you were in a safe place). Eventually the crashes will be rare and thus again preventing abuse is more important to the health of the community as a whole than the "unfair" (not really, the rules are the same for everyone) death of a character.

Overruling RL needs: This is not a casual game meant to be picked up and discarded in moments to play a few minutes when you happen to have spare time. So it's priority time: either you get your character to relative safety and RL waits as long as it takes (probably not more than few minutes) or you decice the RL is more important and risk your character being defenseless while the timer counts down.

Did I miss some case where "innocents" might be "unfairly" inconvinienced by the "alt-f4 timer" (defined as unclean logout, no matter if it's due to connection loss or game crash or game quit without logging off properly) ?

edit: see my thoughts on the logout timer below http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=23764&pid=237147#pid237147

[Haplo (DayZ) 44]

what about this;

a sleeping bag is provided as an item on spawn. when DCing, a (insert time here) animation plays, of your character rolling out, entering, and zipping up the sleeping bag. any players in close proximity will hear that animation ie. zipper being drawn, and can pinpoint your location. you can cancel this animation to defend yourself, cancelling the DC. when the animation completes, DC is successful

[eero.afheurlin@iki.fi 0]

So I though a bit about the logout timer (see above, defined as clean logout, ie clicking abort and waiting patiently).

1. Default timer is 30 seconds, if you have taken damage (except from bleeding) or fired a weapon (using melee weapon counts) there is a 5 minute cooldown period during which you cannot log out cleanly.

2. Every logout doubles the timer (exponential growth), this means that we can start with a small timer and things are still tolerable to those that want/need to switch server once or twice but the wait gets really long fast if you're hopping.

3. 10 minutes of playing activity (counted as walking, eating food, making campfire, talking on direct coms, anything than just laying there waiting) resets the login timer back to default value. 4 hours of being logged out resets the timer.

4. By moving you can reset your logout timer and defend yourself should something hostile find you.

alt-f4 timer is your current logout timer + cooldown (if any) + 5 minute penalty.

This means you cannot simply abort from a fight, you need to finish the fight or GTFO to safety. alt-f4 will be even worse. server hopping gets old real fast (30s -> 1min -> 2min -> 4min -> 8min -> 16min -> 32min -> 64min) the first three levels are tolerable for getting together with buddies and then starting playing properly.

I also really like the idea of player logins/spawns being announced in some subtle way to those nearby (the kla-klack of a weapon being cocked is probably a suitably scary one :)) and then having 10s waiting period (fade the screen in from white/blank your eyes adjust to stepping from the void to this realm) this should stop people from spawning in and immediately shooting others in the back (and again encourages logging out in a safe place and discourages server hopping for any reason inside potentially hot locations unless your buddies have already secured the location).

edit: on a second though 5-7s login timer is probably long enough and even that could be immediately reset if you take damage.

Practical effects:

To people changing server to avoid night or to switch to play with friends: 30s to 2min wait, not bad.

To those trying to get out of fight: must get to safety and wait 5min (+30s to logout) or leave their character helpless for 10min... (alt-f4)

Server hopping for farming: after a few hops they have to start actually doing something (to reset the timer) which should be somewhat riskier than just waiting in the corner or suffer even longer timers patiently.

Of course that reset can be adjusted to 15-30min of play time as well.

edit: the "fight timers" (aka cooldown) need to be long enough so that someone sniping and missing will have actual risk of facing the consuquences of their actions, this is why 30sek (often suggested since many other [mostly melee, close combat] MMOs use it) is way too low, so once they have missed they will need to leg it or risk being flanked (realistically the sniper will get away unless they're facing counter-sniping or just being too stupid to live).

edit: why no cooldowm from simple bleeding, it's harsh enough already. I want to give people the chance to logout (after the cooldown if they were in a fight) and organize some help for themselves.

edit2: Revised suggestion: http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=23764&pid=242558#pid242558

[eero.afheurlin@iki.fi 0]

On "the other thread" (http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=26504, warning foaming at the mouth from the get go...) someone had actually a pretty smart idea to prevent "ghosting" (defined as disconnecting, then using another server to flank and reconnecting to the original server), have a timer (he suggest 1h) during which you cannot return to the server you came from (I'm not 100% if he meant that this should happen only if you connected to another server in between, probably or it would again be "penalizing" those who just have their connection dropped from underneath them).

However it does not solve disconnecting to avoid consequences and does not solve farming (there are plenty of servers to jump around in).

[Wired 1]

There are MANY reasons not to use a logout timer to fix disconnect issues, chief amongst those is the requirement for this mod to use a beta version of arma II in order to play.

As you all know, Alpha and Beta versions of the game are incredibly unstable. A common problem with Arma II is that your game will minimize and you'll not be able to open it back up, and you'll have to cut the process.

There are also numerous internet issues. I'm not going to get into these, but the short description of what I would say is that "Internet Service Providers are not perfect."

While some of you may not experience these disconnects, you have to understand that despite your luck they do happen. And they don't happen announced. At one point my game was crashing every 5 minutes.

There are numerous crashes that can happen because this game is in an alpha state and requires the beta state of a different game to operate. Anything can happen: Software, to hardware, to internet, to server, to dayz central server.

I realize a lot of you feel that a disconnect timer is effective for this because MMOs use them, however there is an important distinction between dayZ and an MMO: In MMOs, when you die you do not lose anything. A semi-exception is Eve, but you have INSURANCE.

One of the more pressing issues with people disconnecting is that they are doing it to get to a different position. A good fix to this is one I've seen float around the board: Simply make it so that if you disconnect from server A to connect to server B, you cannot cnnect to server A for an hour or some other significant but reasonable amount of time.

Problems with people disconnecting after they've been shot/fatally wounded? Have the server hang onto their state, and theoretically have it update their character with the current status if they disconnect unexpectedly. That way, they retain their fatal injuries onto the next server they join.

Simply put, using a disconnect timer is a terrible solution to something which has to be solved in the long term of this alpha. It's also easily griefable- I believe the last attempt at this was removed because someone could wander by and just loot your stuff.

[jesquik 75]

Personally I object because of the reasons posted by others: abusing the system to find out enemies. Also' date=' a whole friend-system to just make it not possible to disconnect near other people is absurd. Finally, I don't agree with your calculations, as players are not spread evenly across the map.

The disconnect timer also does not work, as you state correctly. I myself stilll find the best systems the one which checks whether you are fleeing from some threat or combat (which this system is trying to solve):

1. Check for zombies aggro'd on player currently

2. Check for shots fired by player in the past few seconds/minutes

3. Check if player has been hurt in the past few seconds/minutes

4. Check if bullets have impact near the player in the past few seconds/minutes

If everything is false, you can disconnect.

Specifics should really be analyzed as it has to be balanced. Specific reasons and time durations could maybe dictate a timer when you still want to force disconnect.

[/quote']

Thanks for summing those up into easy points. :D

Those are most certainly the best ways to assure that nobody is gaming the system. Someone who is in an active firefight should not be able to log for a while. I have been in a handful of fights that take 10 minutes or more because people are so careful not to get shot. Some of those people disconnected before they died, some of them disconnected when they died (no loot.) This is what PvP is like in Arma and in Dayz especially, no system should get in the way of this.

---

Problems with people disconnecting after they've been shot/fatally wounded? Have the server hang onto their state' date=' and theoretically have it update their character with the current status if they disconnect unexpectedly. That way, they retain their fatal injuries onto the next server they join.

Simply put, using a disconnect timer is a terrible solution to something which has to be solved in the long term of this alpha. It's also easily griefable- I believe the last attempt at this was removed because someone could wander by and just loot your stuff.

[/quote']

I now agree that disconnect timers are not the way to go, as no amount of time will agree with the way that time flows in Dayz when your heart is pounding and you are not sure where your opponent is.

However, I must say that any solution that is implemented must avoid allowing people to join other servers with their 'fatal injuries' or any way for people to avoid getting killed if they would have otherwise. Jumping to another server so you can die and then collect the loot with your new body should not be tolerated in any way!

[Herr Robert 28]

That would be an overly complicated solution. I think that someone else on the forums had a good idea. Basically that you need to stand still for 30-60 seconds before you are logged out once you have hit "Abort", and if you move, the timer resets. I wonder if that would work for people that hit ALT+F4, though.

[eero.afheurlin@iki.fi 0]

There are MANY reasons not to use a logout timer to fix disconnect issues' date=' chief amongst those is the requirement for this mod to use a beta version of arma II in order to play.

[/quote']

As stated game crash due to beta/alpha status leading to disconnect and thus penalty timer and possibly dying while the timer counts down is not different from dying or losing equipment (been there, lost stuff to glitches) to any other alpha/beta related bug, so I do not see this as a valid critisism against the timers.

Other good reasons ? Crappy internet isn't really a good one but it might be common enough to warrant consideration (I guess the servers don't keep detailed enough statistics of pings prior to sudden connection losses so I guess it's just anecdotes all around [and "plural of anecdote isn't data"]).

Problems with people disconnecting after they've been shot/fatally wounded? That way' date=' they retain their fatal injuries onto the next server they join.

[/quote']

Does not solve farming and does not solve people disconnecting to avoid the consequences of their actions (shoot at someone, miss, see them coming at you, DC -> consequences avoided).

Simply put' date=' using a disconnect timer is a terrible solution to something which has to be solved in the long term of this alpha. It's also easily griefable- I believe the last attempt at this was removed because someone could wander by and just loot your stuff.

[/quote']

AFAIUnderstand (but I might be wrong) it was removed because it was way too easy to dupe stuff with it (it was 5 seconds, what random player manages to 1. find you in the bush 2. loot you in 5s ?), there rumouredly is also some issue with the ArmA server code itself not making this easy (but technical details should come after things are thought out on a more theoretical level.

Anyway, people need to learn to disconnect in (relatively) safe places, also the idea was that the normal logout timer is both short(ish) (if you are not "in a fight") resettable so the likelyhood of someone "randomly" finding you hiding in the bush and robbing/killing you is very low

"connection lost" is wholly different issue and indeed very hard to solve in a way that does not cause problems to people who have crappy connections, however what other solutions there are ? I know I'm a bit stuck with the timer idea but I really do try to come up with alternatives as well, but so far haven't got any workable ideas.

Ghosting could be solved by preventing return to server A after loggin on to server B (though, no-doubt some people will complain that it will make getting together with buddies too hard) and I would like to see that implemented (unless the server side has some problem with it and implementing would be very hard) "real soon now".

So what ideas do you have for solving farming and "DC to avoid consequences" (let's just call that DC, "ghosting" is already well defined and easily understood to exist as a separate problem) ?

---

30-60 seconds before you are logged out once you have hit "Abort"' date=' and if you move, the timer resets.

[/quote']

Too short if trying to avoid a fight you started from a distance (and others are already saying 10s is too long), but IMO also checking for bullet impacts "near you" is not feasible, this is why I suggested the "taken damage or shots fired" cooldown timer to normal clean logout.

But also making the logout long enough to avoid "DC from fight" always will put undue burden on those playing cleanly, this is why some state tracking is needed.

[Wired 1]

I wonder exactly what the claim to fame for farming is...

There are two scenarios in which farming is unsuccessful. Lets say I'm hiding in the barracks at the NW airfield.

I switch to server 2. No one has been to the NW airfield. Therefor, no gear has been triggered.

I switch to server 3. Someone has been there. The good gear has been looted.

What are the off chances you get there, someone is in the area but just doesn't visit the barracks, and you manage to grab some sweet loot? On high population servers, there is a good chance someone has spawned it and is there, and if they catch you logging in they will just shoot you where you stand.

A disconnect timer would, realistically, only fix situations where you are looting and someone is in the area, since they are very likely to make it to the high-reward loot areas first and shoot you.

Also, regarding people disconnecting to avoid being killed - I have to wonder how many of these are people who disconnect to try to ghost versus people who disconnect and go to a different server. The Majority of bans I see regarding this are repeat offenders who keep returning to the fight.

Also, constantly checking for a series of statuses is a huge load on the server.

[eero.afheurlin@iki.fi 0]

I wonder exactly what the claim to fame for farming is...

It seems to be a problem' date=' maybe less these days but I don't know, anyway that part of the timers is very,very benign compared to the "do not leave the fight" timers, and the first level that annoys clean players can be brought down even more by increasing the exponent part (say 10s->30s->90s ...)

Also, regarding people disconnecting to avoid being killed - I have to wonder how many of these are people who disconnect to try to ghost versus people who disconnect and go to a different server. The Majority of bans I see regarding this are repeat offenders who keep returning to the fight.

I guess if the anti-ghosting measure can be implemented quickly we'll see if the "DC epidemic" goes down or not.

Also' date=' constantly checking for a series of statuses is a huge load on the server.

[/quote']

Now this is a valid technical critisism on why actually implementing the timers might be unfeasible, however untill we can figure out if the timers are indeed the best solution we can at the moment come up with I guess it's a bit of moot point as long as we agree on the following

1. There is a problem (ghosting [solvable without unduly affecting people with crappy internet], DC to avoid consequences, farming [possibly already curbed to some degree])

2. The problem should be solved

But I think we should come up with a relatively simple yet efficient (at crubing the problem) solution on more theoretical level first and worry about the implementation details later (and should they prove insurmountable get back to thinking better ideas).

[Wired 1]

I wonder exactly what the claim to fame for farming is...

It seems to be a problem' date=' maybe less these days but I don't know, anyway that part of the timers is very,very benign compared to the "do not leave the fight" timers, and the first level that annoys clean players can be brought down even more by increasing the exponent part (say 10s->30s->90s ...)

Also, regarding people disconnecting to avoid being killed - I have to wonder how many of these are people who disconnect to try to ghost versus people who disconnect and go to a different server. The Majority of bans I see regarding this are repeat offenders who keep returning to the fight.

I guess if the anti-ghosting measure can be implemented quickly we'll see if the "DC epidemic" goes down or not.

Also' date=' constantly checking for a series of statuses is a huge load on the server.

[/quote']

Now this is a valid technical critisism on why actually implementing the timers might be unfeasible, however untill we can figure out if the timers are indeed the best solution we can at the moment come up with I guess it's a bit of moot point as long as we agree on the following

1. There is a problem (ghosting [solvable without unduly affecting people with crappy internet], DC to avoid consequences, farming [possibly already curbed to some degree])

2. The problem should be solved

But I think we should come up with a relatively simple yet efficient (at crubing the problem) solution on more theoretical level first and worry about the implementation details later (and should they prove insurmountable get back to thinking better ideas).

As far as getting punished due to software issues, I believe that my end of the argument would be cleared up on a couple of levels if the following where to happen:

1) The game required a more stable build of Arma II. a lot of the good features and preventative measures lately have required the beta build however it wasn't until this latest build that I started having problems.

2)Servers ran the latest version. Also something which propped up, since a lot of servers were still running 1.60.0 of the Arma client but they required a later beta version.

I am beginning to suspect my issues are a combination of these things, as certain servers I will not crash on despite 12 hours of gameplay.

This might make disconnect timers more tolerable, however certainly not for more than a minute.

There are two levels of disconnecting to avoid consequences:

1) Zombie clearing: I wonder how hard it would be for the server to store how many zombies are on aggro with you when you disconnect. Understanding of course that the more the server has to keep track of, the less performance you are going to get out of the system...

2) Escaping pvp: The hardest to justify - it does happen, on both ends of the scale(Pvpers disconnecting to avoid retribution, people in general disconnecting to avoid death.) If there was something simple to keep track of outside of just a flat penalty, this would be a lot cleaner.

[eero.afheurlin@iki.fi 0]

There are two levels of disconnecting to avoid consequences:

1) Zombie clearing: I wonder how hard it would be for the server to store how many zombies are on aggro with you when you disconnect. Understanding of course that the more the server has to keep track of' date=' the less performance you are going to get out of the system...

[/quote']

I guess this value would need to be updated to hive pretty often to be able to spawn the zombies when logging into another server as well. But keeping track of this would basically solve this part of the issue.

2) Escaping pvp: The hardest to justify - it does happen' date=' on both ends of the scale(Pvpers disconnecting to avoid retribution, people in general disconnecting to avoid death.) If there was something simple to keep track of outside of just a flat penalty, this would be a lot cleaner.

[/quote']

Indeed and it's a bit of a problem. here's a quickly revised suggestion

1, keep track of zombie aggro (I didn't actually address having aggored but not having received damage), spawn new zombies on new server if there were any on the old.

2. anti-farming timers as suggested (tweaking of th exact base and exponent values is of course required)

3. "no do escape fight" timer cooldown as suggested (so no clean logouts for 5min if received damage or used weapon)

4. "alt-f4" penalty lowered to 1 minute, so if you're sneaking around, not having been a fight recently and suddenly lose connection you character will be there for 1 minute (+10s for the normal logout timer). If there are cooldown timers active those will count down first and the normal exponential logout timer then.

This means that losing connection in a fight is losing the fight, but lag will also cost you a fight and while ghosting is relatively easy to prove after the fact (the pattern should look pretty obvious from hive POV, probably why the majority of DC-abuse bans are from ghosting) but I doubt anyone want the devs to go trhough tons of server logs just because someone (no name tags) allegedly DCed from a fight (and that shouldn't be a bannable offence since it's possible that they really just were unlucky, so what punishment to give?)

In fact should "crappy internet" be common enough the "alt-f4 penalty" itself could be removed or lowered even more, just as long as the normal cooldown and logout timers are always effective.

But I still don't see how it would be a huge problem to lose your gear "to a network outage", I played a game (see my first post) where this was basically the case for many years and random disconnections were common because it was dial-up. Of course it might be that I'm just weird in accepting such things as part of life.

Anyway, better suggestions that would solve the problem are welcome.