How to stop server hopping.

[gibonez 3633]

By what ? I mean what can shoot you on empty server ? 

 

People joining in.

 

Better question is why should people be allowed to loot without risk on empty servers ? Especially in a world where you can share loot across the global servers and then just join a populated server.

 

You see how this leads to bad gameplay right where it leads to a process of repetition ?

[General Zod 1114]

People joining in.

 

Better question is why should people be allowed to loot without risk on empty servers ? Especially in a world where you can share loot across the global servers and then just join a populated server.

 

You see how this leads to bad gameplay right where it leads to a process of repetition ?

Why shouldn't they ? Is dayz some sort of communism simulator ? Everything must be shared ? I know it's somewhat Russian, but calm down comrade Stalin  They entered empty server to loot in peace let them loot. We are here to punish server hoppers not make everyone play on 35/40 servers. 

Seriously, what is wrong with you people, restricting rights of normal players to prevent server hopping. Sound like 'murica land of the free, with free cavity search and full body scan at every airport. 

[gibonez 3633]

Why shouldn't they ? Is dayz some sort of communism simulator ? Everything must be shared ? I know it's somewhat Russian, but calm down comrade Stalin  They entered empty server to loot in peace let them loot. We are here to punish server hoppers not make everyone play on 35/40 servers. 

Seriously, what is wrong with you people, restricting rights of normal players to prevent server hopping. Sound like 'murica land of the free, with free cavity search and full body scan at every airport. 

 

Nothing at all is bad about restricting things when it benefits gameplay.

 

Making there be risk involved when looting at all times only serves to help the game, you want gear then be at risk.

 

If you want to loot in an empty server go ahead but it will take substancially longer since the loot spawns far far less.

[General Zod 1114]

Nothing at all is bad about restricting things when it benefits gameplay.

 

Making there be risk involved when looting at all times only serves to help the game, you want gear then be at risk.

 

If you want to loot in an empty server go ahead but it will take substancially longer since the loot spawns far far less.

Sure it will help making KoS even more popular, forcing fresh spawns into full servers. Every larger city will be occupied by armed groups, end fresh spawns will have to avoid them. I don't get people like, self righteous types, what makes you feel that you know better ? That forcing players with nothing play with those well armed improve the game ? If it does for you go ahead play your way, but don't try to force others do things your way. Some people may not enjoy that type of play, they want to get what they need to survive and live away from others.  

Because your idea will end this way :

 

Start fresh

Server is full, everything is looted, you're struggling to find food. 

Since server is full you run into someone with better gear, it's more likely that they will kill rather than help you 

You die

 

Rinse and repeat. 

 

So I'm going to say it again, stop trying to build communism here. Stop trying to punish normal players and force them to play the way you want , make your own game if you want thing to be done your way. 

Now lets get back to punishing server hopper and server hoppers ONLY. 

Edited August 17, 2014 by General Zod

[Evil Minion 943]

Sure it will help making KoS even more popular, forcing fresh spawns into full servers.

Sorry, but here you sound like a typical "I spawn on empty servers gear up and then join a full server to kill others" server hopper.

Also having no loot spawning on empty servers does not mean there will be no loot. For this to happen people would have to loot it empty without anything spawning in the meantime - which is pretty unlikely as the server is big enough and in case you got many looters more gear would spawn. So most empty servers would still have plenty of loot on them - but they won't drown in it making looting them a little more involved. Again - a good thing. So if you like to play on empty servers you will have to search around putting effort into search that you would have put in surviving otherwise.

The whole concept balances out the risk/reward aspect which is pretty nice. High risk/high reward on high population servers and low risk/low reward on low population servers. Seems fair to me. There is no reason to advocate low risk/high reward empty server looting - it just hurts the game and all players (people who do it will miss most of the game getting bored pretty quickly and others will be up against highly geared players more often getting frustrated quickly).

Now back to server hoppers: Server switching in general should have some cost attached to it (as its just like a path between places on the map, and a pretty save one at that). In general it doesn't have to be that much - 5 minutes waiting time is annyoing anough that you would rather not switch but doesn't really hurt. Now after several switches the "hopping penalty" should kick in. I like the "double time" idea as it keeps ramping up instead of hitting with full force after activation (as written above a "normal player" could get unlucky). The "spawn elsewhere" aproach probably hits other more and does not really affect server hoppers that much (they just walk over and then loot the place).

[rodolfoxiii 71]

Make the loot spawn random.

 

IE: spawn civilian stuff in military bases, AKM in farms etc.

 

Totally random.

 

It is the only way.

[gibonez 3633]

Sorry, but here you sound like a typical "I spawn on empty servers gear up and then join a full server to kill others" server hopper.

 

 

Pretty much.

 

Throwing out insane hypotheticals trying to explain how in some strange and very obscure situations regular people would be hurt when in reality only server hoppers and people who loot in empty servers would be affected.

[General Zod 1114]

Sorry, but here you sound like a typical "I spawn on empty servers gear up and then join a full server to kill others" server hopper.

Perhaps I do, but you sound like a typical. I want interact with others and I want force every one else to interact with others. Play the game my way or we will punish you. What if in the future they add a PvE that will make players struggle for survival ? Lots of zeds, harsh weather, diseases. What if someone will want to play on his own away from the city on a less populated server ? 

The problem here is not playing on an empty server. 

The problem is that I know exactly where to find specific items, piano houses and police stations and big concrete buildings for guns. 

It does not matter if I play on full or empty server I know where to go for good loot. If loot was spawning randomly and you would have to search each and every building to find guns or other items it would solve both problems of hopping ( in addition to penalty) and looting an empty server. Because right now I go into Svetlojarsk and I know there are 5-6 buildings which almost always have guns in them, I don't need to loot entire town  for 40 minutes, I spend 10 going to the specific buildings and I know that I will for sure find 1 or 2 guns. 

 

 

The whole concept balances out the risk/reward aspect which is pretty nice. High risk/high reward on high population servers and low risk/low reward on low population servers. Seems fair to me. There is no reason to advocate low risk/high reward empty server looting - it just hurts the game and all players (people who do it will miss most of the game getting bored pretty quickly and others will be up against highly geared players more often getting frustrated quickly).

And what will happen when they make loot scarce overall ? I would assume they will at some point. Going to a big town or a military base on a full server when unarmed is not high risk is certain death, there are always people there and they will shoot you. And you don't find guns in small towns. Add than to an overall decrease in loot availability and the gap between armed an unarmed players will increase even more. 

That's why they removed coast spawn, to give newbies a chance to avoid armed players. 

Edited August 18, 2014 by General Zod

[Evil Minion 943]

I don't want to force people to do anything. I want the choices to be balanced out so people won't get a huge advantage from playing in a certain way like hopping between servers or playing on empty ones. Because that would be just a mild version of "forcing" as well. If playing on an empty server would keep your expected loot gain rate at roughly the same as playing on a full server its really only a matter of preference. Same with server hopping - if your cost (time+risk) is about the same for hopping servers and looting a single server people would not get an advantage.

 

Now server hopping completely negates risk of travel and greatly reduces risk on destination (as you can pick your server) and every measure to increase risk would simply cause frustration (having a chance to delete your character, no server choice, the OPs suggestion etc.). So I think increasing cost by increasing the switch time is more reasonable. However the time needed here is higher than the appropiate time for server switch (done for other reasons) and thats why I suggested the ramp up model. The final time should be above the "balanced switch time" to counteract the few fast switches at the beginning. So you can totally keep server hopping but you would pay the right price for doing so instead of gaining a free advantage.

 

Sorry, I don't buy the "I like to jump between servers instead of playing on the map" argument. I am pretty sure its either "I like the advantage it nets me over other players." or "I need to do it because otherwise I am at a disadvantage." - so don't argue with "anti server hopping restricts our choice of how to play the game" - thats not true, in fact its completely the opposite. Not doing something about server hopping is saying "play the game this way or we will punish you" (by being less geared at higher risk).

 

And the "totally random loot spawn" is just a joke. This would just randomize the game to an unauthentic and luck based level. Having certain areas or buildings spawn certain types of loot is a good thing for both gamplay in authenticity. Same with coast spawns - they add to the game. DayZ is about survival in both PvE and PvP - if you just want to dress up without that risk better go play Sims. If you want to fight fully geared all the time go play CoD or Arma.

[trev186 389]

You guys realize no one is going to rent a server if it cant be played on when empty and or it has no loot until it is populated.

What about pivate shards. Suddenly u lock urself to one server and try to play when the server has hardly any players on it and now there is no loot for u ?

U guys forget that BI makes a lot of money renting servers people will not rent them if they cant be played on.

Also most servers start out empty and slowly populate...problem is if low pop servers spawn no loot no one will join them to kick them off to get to 30-40 pop.

Really need a solution that does not punish the everyone else for what server hoppers do.....even if u think everyone should play on a full server does not mean those who do not ply on full servers are server hoppers/exploiters.

Edited August 18, 2014 by trev186

[Evil Minion 943]

Its about empty servers not spawing loot as long as they are empty - thats especially a factor if central loot management was to be added. So your server spawns loot at a rate determined by the number of players on it but loot won't despawn. If you join a server its no longer empty - so it does spawn loot. However, it will not be stuffed with untouched loot items that spawned freely with nobody there to take them away.

 

Still its true that this would hurt completely new servers so having loot spawning to a (fairly low) minimum threshold before switching to player count dependent spawns might be reasonable. Also more players should not mean an extreme increase of spawns - as written above your looting speed should not be vastly different whether you are playing on empty or full servers (on average, high population servers might have a greater variance according to the risk involved). The point is not to make empty servers unplayable but to make the average speed of gearing up independent of server population to give about the same chances to people who want to be left alone and people who like a lot of interaction.

 

But the actual topic here is server hopping. However, its the same thing - people should not be punished for not excessively hopping between servers. Because thats actually abusing a game mechanic intended for other purposes (server switching) to get an advantage over other players. In the end it hurts everybody - both non-hoppers (lower gear level, less interaction away from key location and more onesided interaction at key locations) and hoppers (if their goal is to get geared its trivialized, if their goal is to play the game they will miss 95% and if their goal is to fight while geared they are probably better off playing a different game).

[trev186 389]

Server hopping is not just an empty server issue.

I would actually say it happens almost as often on mid to high pop servers...

I hangout on the west and I have seen hoppers on several occasions. Arguably ill meet less people at NWAF on a 30 man server than I will on a 5 man. Hopefully that changes but it is true.

So any solution to fixing server hopping needs to account for all population sizes.

Hoppers can easily log out safely and hike 5 mins and loot and leave all in a 15 min window.

[Jex 1104]

Just make it so there's an incremental time between hops and a half hour wait to return to the server/s you were on.

 

So first change is no wait.

2nd server 5 minutes

3rd server 10 minutes, etc

 

Want to return to a server you were on you need to wait 30 minutes (to stop ghosting)

[General Zod 1114]

Just make it so there's an incremental time between hops and a half hour wait to return to the server/s you were on.

 

So first change is no wait.

2nd server 5 minutes

3rd server 10 minutes, etc

 

Want to return to a server you were on you need to wait 30 minutes (to stop ghosting)

Simple, elegant. doesn't hurt legit players. 

[doctorbadsign 645]

I think if you change server too many times within a certain period you should be spawned in the wilderness at least a km away from any buildings.

[gibonez 3633]

Simple, elegant. doesn't hurt legit players. 

 

This was the solution before , people complained and they changed it back :/

[trev186 389]

Simple, elegant. doesn't hurt legit players. 

 

agreed

 

his solution also makes it so u can revisit servers u were just on without a timer

 

nothing more infuriating than having to log back into the same server and get that stupid timer

[trev186 389]

This was the solution before , people complained and they changed it back :/

 

Well if they made it so u could return to the servers u were just on with no timer than it would not be the same

 

Their current and previous iterations punished non abusers more than abusers.

 

hoppers who put up with timers do not really care about them

 

but i have played where the following happens:

 

Join a server (kick so admin can bring his buddies in on a full server)

 

Join a new server timer....shortly after server restarts

 

Join a new server even longer timer now play some more and wife aggro (jump off)

 

Try to rejoin above server after taking out trash (500 second timer in place)

 

Now if they allowed me to rejoin servers i had been on without penalty then thered be no time wasted. 

[Evil Minion 943]

This was the solution before , people complained and they changed it back :/

Wasn't the former solution simply a switch time of 10 minutes for everyone everytime?

 

Anyways I think its established that getting kicked by admin or server restart should not give you any penalty and should not could towards timer increase. Also leaving during waiting time and rejoining again should not count as switch.

 

I also don't mind logging into the same server as long as you didn't join another one in between. Here you might even be able to log in without any waiting time and keep playing with your character (who stayed ingame for up to 30 seconds) - however, a fixed waiting time might be in effect after 30s to avoid doing crazy stuff with server hopping. This still should not count as a "server switch" though.

 

So:

• first switch free, further switches cost increasing waiting time
• no penalty for switching when kicked or in case of server restart*
• if you switched to another server you have to wait 30 minutes before you can rejoin the old one (independent of switch penalty)
• if you log out and rejoin within 30 seconds you can play on with your character as if nothing happened (no switch penalty increase)
• if you log out and want to rejoin after 30 second have passed you have to wait 5 minutes (independent of switch penalty)
• switch time penalty applies after leaving rather than joining the next server - in case of rejoin it gets ignored, not increased and the rules above apply

With this system you would have gotten a lousy 5 minutes (for rejoining after 30 seconds) - less as some time already passed while you took out the trash.

 

*Make servers set a flag ~10min before restart that also makes it impossible to join - generally avoids frustration for both people switching and new players who joined only to see the red line.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Evil Minion

[arlingtine 27]

i still dont see the problem. people shoot everyone they see right away anyway. what does it matter to me if you server hop? the answer is... it makes no difference at all. why waste time working on resolving something that doesnt affect anyone but the server hoppers when u could fix actual problems with the game. problems like joining the game stuck in a floor. there will always be people taking advantage of game mechanics. at least with hopping they will eventually die and have wasted a buttload of time

[Evil Minion 943]

the answer is... it makes no difference at all. why waste time

And thats where you are completely wrong. It makes an extremely huge difference simply because of the advantage it nets you and the easiness involved (with negates most reasons for cooperation - one factor that leads to simply shooting others). So its not a waste of time but an important part of fixing the game in terms of gameplay, loot rarity, map travel and population etc.

 

Server hopping is one major factor in most gameplay-related issues right now. And probably the only one that could be resolved in this stage of development .

Edited August 20, 2014 by Evil Minion

[General Zod 1114]

To make it accident proof you don't get penalty if you were kicked or server restarted.  

[pilgrim* 3513]

At least 90% of the DayZ players will NOT wait 10 minutes to log in for any reason

If they have to wait any real time they will just go play another game

This is true.. after a couple of 10-minute waits (not even 30 mins, just 10 minutes) most players will give it up

They will not care why they have to wait, they will just stop playing

Edited August 20, 2014 by pilgrim

[Jex 1104]

This was the solution before , people complained and they changed it back :/

 

 

It was!??

 

They did???

 

Herp Derp :)

[Jex 1104]

i still dont see the problem. people shoot everyone they see right away anyway. what does it matter to me if you server hop? the answer is... it makes no difference at all. why waste time working on resolving something that doesnt affect anyone but the server hoppers when u could fix actual problems with the game. problems like joining the game stuck in a floor. there will always be people taking advantage of game mechanics. at least with hopping they will eventually die and have wasted a buttload of time

 

There's 2 issues.

 

Server hoppers are upsetting the "economy" of the game and are looking to grab as much gear as possible which means less to go around - the loot table has finite objects in it. If a group of people hop ewvery server and grab all the M4's say - you'll never find one again. That's exaggerated of course but is good as an example.

 

Ghosting - you're fighting this guy, the battle is going in your favour because you've made better tactical decisions. Suddenly you get shot in the back by the player! How so?? He went and logged into another server, moved to a postion behind you, logged back into your server and killed you.