An Idea to Curb Server-hopping

[trashcanman 15]

After using the search feature most ideas for stopping server-hopping looters is to somehow affect something about the player. Log-in timers, where he spawns, where he can loot, what he can loot, which servers he's allowed on etc.

My idea is to change how loot works, not to put restrictions on players and annoy legit players, so I think it's better. Essentially my idea is to stop items in your inventory from following you if you changed servers too quickly. Every item would be stamped with the server and the time when it was last looted, and when you connected to a server it would check all your items and any items from "foreign" servers that had been looted too recently would be deleted from your inventory.

Now, this idea doesn't 100% stop server-hopping for loot but it curbs it significantly and best of all doesn't screw legit players:

-If you log in there's not a timer and you can always loot and use everything right away.

-If you log out for the night, by morning, even if you log onto a different server, all your items will transfer.

-If your ISP goes down and you can't connect for awhile when you reconnect you'll have your stuff.

-If your friend joins another server and you want to join him you can go right away no dumb timers, but you might sacrifice a few of the items you recently looted.

-In the worst cases for legit players like it got too dark to press on but you just looted something nice, you'd only have to log out or wait a little while before you could log onto a new server.

-If you didn't like the time of day, or the lag, or some of the server rules, you can switch servers all day till you find one you like no penalties since all your old items stay with you.

The only thing you can't do is hop from one server to another stock-piling loot at a rate 100 times that which normal players can acquire it. Technically this would still allow you to come across an empty loot spot and hop until you found something you wanted to keep, but once you did that, you'd then be stuck on that server for awhile.

Also, this would probably cut down a bit on logging because zombies are after you or because you're being shot at since if you'd just looted something you'd either have to take a "time out" to keep it and wait until you thought it was safe to log back in, or change servers and lose what you just got. Probably better solutions for just the PvP part but this would help.

Anyhow that's my idea. The best amount of time would have to be determined. Enough to be punitive to the hoppers but not terrible if some situation occurred where a legit player had to wait out the timer. Maybe 15-20 minutes or so?

[stbadreturns 0]

I also got an idea mine was like yours but it would look at what u got and keep track and see if u were logging in looting logging out over and over u eventually get like a warning saying like your suspected of loot hoping if it continues u will be killed and it be logged and if u been killed/warned repetitively u could eventually get stronger punishments

[edonovan 15]

Just forbid storing anything in a tent that wasn't spawned on that server.

[Kjell Bjarne 0]

The only thing that will work is if one character can only be played on one server.

I can imagine alot people will hate it first, but when get used to it, they will love it. The best way to introduce that is to make new server were the character is sticked to the server. So you can decide what kind of DayZ you want to play, with or without serverhopping possibility.

[trashcanman 15]

The only thing that will work is if one character can only be played on one server.

Your cure is worse than the disease though.

Sure, maybe every time you play there's no server hoppers. Great. But how often will you get to play when servers only hold ~50 people and your 1 single server is full all night?

[edonovan 15]

The only thing that will work is if one character can only be played on one server.

I can imagine alot people will hate it first' date=' but when get used to it, they will love it. The best way to introduce that is to make new server were the character is sticked to the server. So you can decide what kind of DayZ you want to play, with or without serverhopping possibility.

[/quote']

Trying to think of a scenario where this is a bad idea / game breaker. Can't think of any.

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But how often will you get to play when servers only hold ~50 people and your 1 single server is full all night?

You can still play on other servers.

The only problem would be most servers are not powerful enough to indefinitely store all of the data for all of the players who connect to them. This would mean some sort of database cleaning would be necessary.

[Kjell Bjarne 0]

The only thing that will work is if one character can only be played on one server.

Your cure is worse than the disease though.

Sure' date=' maybe every time you play there's no server hoppers. Great. But how often will you get to play when servers only hold ~50 people and your 1 single server is full all night?

[/quote']

If one server with one character of you is full. Go to another server and play another character there. Later you can return to the server with your older character and go on playing this character. Full servers in this case will be annoying. But think of what you get. A more intense gameplay experience through very limited exploit using by others and yourself. Getting good loot will be a challenge again.

[jesquik 75]

The only thing that will work is if one character can only be played on one server.

Sure' date=' maybe every time you play there's no server hoppers. Great. But how often will you get to play when servers only hold ~50 people and your 1 single server is full all night?

[/quote']

If one server with one character of you is full. Go to another server and play another character there. Later you can return to the server with your older character and go on playing this character. Full servers in this case will be annoying. But think of what you get. A more intense gameplay experience through very limited exploit using by others and yourself. Getting good loot will be a challenge again.

The only way you can make this work is if you have the ability to put in a request to change your character to another server.. maybe it takes 1 day. If you do not do this you will have a private party not beholden to anyone running a server with your virtual character. They could take the server down for maintenance, use it for their own war games, or not update to the most recent beta.

Until there are servers run by the mod, or Bohemia, there must be a player transfer option before there are server based characters.