Please fix the Alt F4 exploit

[Cat_Astrophe]

The problem at least for a bountyhunter is that you won't get the bounty on a player if he disconnects. You spend time and credits on chasing your prey down and get nothing in return.

Yeah, there is that. But I have had so many people log on me in other games that it doesn't even register anymore. They are literally saying "YOU WIN". Kinda begs the question "Why are you playing in open if you have no "testicles" for it?". The answer is "TO make you angry so you rage on the forums.". lol And that's just the tone the loggers use. Same "feces", different game. What's even more precious is to find one of the florid gripers doing it too. In any game where you can use such a thing, some will. Says nothing good about them.
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Of course, you can record and post such events to youtube, ergo bypassing the name and shame restrictions. Wonder if any of the popular tubers would be willing to run those episodes periodically? Be interesting to watch a weekly "Name and shame special".

 

[Quineloe]

Good point, I think Ill just start adding IP's to my block list of my router instead. See how that works.

That's probably the next big thing to do, complete with tutorials for hardcore PVP players on how to do it for their routers.

The fix frontier will most likely put up is give the client of the player who didn't combat log limited access to the player's ship who did log so they can keep damaging it.

However, if instead of terminating connection to the server the combat logging player terminates the connection to the other player, he keeps control of his ship while they both can't see each other anymore.


The only upside here is that not everyone can do it.

 

[ToniB]

the easiest fix would be: everyone wins on his pc. happy pony wonderland

 

[Drakkir]

That's probably the next big thing to do, complete with tutorials for hardcore PVP players on how to do it for their routers.

The fix frontier will most likely put up is give the client of the player who didn't combat log limited access to the player's ship who did log so they can keep damaging it.

However, if instead of terminating connection to the server the combat logging player terminates the connection to the other player, he keeps control of his ship while they both can't see each other anymore.


The only upside here is that not everyone can do it.

You do realize... No you don't.. ok let me explain .. Its a peer2peer game...

Dumbing it down even further... Trader 1 is attacked by Pirate 2, the only 2 computers involved are Trader 1 & Pirate 2, as they do damage, etc, it gets reported to "FD Server", thats all, the 2 clients fight it out recording hits/misses/damage and then report stats back to the FD Server.

So for example if Trader 1, Alt-f4's out of the game, then both stop reporting anything to the FD server... Period, no Kill no damage, no nothing cause there is no conflict happening and nothing to report.

For them to keep you logged in, it has be a client/server type program like WoW or Eve etc, so when connection is lost, the Server will put a place holder in... This game can't do that as programmed. Pure and simple. For them to switch frameworks, would require rewriting ALL code of the game in essense making a WHOLE NEW GAME. The peer2peer connectivity is programmed into every part of the game, and all that would have to be removed and replaced with new.

 

[Quineloe]

I have no idea why you feel like correcting me on something I wrote nothing about to begin with.

Or you did not understand at all what I wrote. That seems more likely.

 

[Briarée]

Its not fixable

it is, put a timer if logged of during fight, wich last 30 sec or a minute, and during wich your ship remains where it is.

should you come back during said timer, you resume full control of your ship at the state it currently is.

see? probleme fixed

 

[WalterHWhite]

It's entirely fixable, but there'll always be a margin of error. Saying it isn't fixable doesn't do the topic justice.

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

it is, put a timer if logged of during fight, wich last 30 sec or a minute, and during wich your ship remains where it is.

should you come back during said timer, you resume full control of your ship at the state it currently is.

see? probleme fixed

you need to read the thread Its a p2P game there is no "server" to host the ghost ship, the only thing that could do it is the remaining cmdrs PC and that would be insecure. Also read up regarding "player A" severing the p2p connection between him and his opponent. They dont even need to disco, just stop talking to the other PC, handshake to the matchmaking server remains in place and it just looks like a peer connection failure.

If there was any intention to hand over control over your ship to someone else then it would have been done by now, this is an issue that is going on 10 months old.

It's entirely fixable, but there'll always be a margin of error. Saying it isn't fixable doesn't do the topic justice.

You are of course correct, my initial response was slightly off the cuff due to the volume of threads on the matter. A better reply would have been its very difficult to fix in a satisfactory manner, more so in a P2P game with no overriding authoritative server in place.

 

[Flyinpiranha]

You do realize... No you don't.. ok let me explain .. Its a peer2peer game...

Dumbing it down even further... Trader 1 is attacked by Pirate 2, the only 2 computers involved are Trader 1 & Pirate 2, as they do damage, etc, it gets reported to "FD Server", thats all, the 2 clients fight it out recording hits/misses/damage and then report stats back to the FD Server.

So for example if Trader 1, Alt-f4's out of the game, then both stop reporting anything to the FD server... Period, no Kill no damage, no nothing cause there is no conflict happening and nothing to report.

For them to keep you logged in, it has be a client/server type program like WoW or Eve etc, so when connection is lost, the Server will put a place holder in... This game can't do that as programmed. Pure and simple. For them to switch frameworks, would require rewriting ALL code of the game in essense making a WHOLE NEW GAME. The peer2peer connectivity is programmed into every part of the game, and all that would have to be removed and replaced with new.

The easiest way would be to impose a fine or something similar upon certain conditions being met. It's obvious that closing the process can be triggered in a few different ways that circumvent the game, but the breadcrumb trail and the information after would be pretty obvious.

The biggest problem is finding a way to discern the legitimate connectivity issues with the intentional. I think if a user has certain circumstances happen a few times and not at other times it would create a map of when/where they'd use it. For example 4 hours of play but they only disconnect when their shields are at 45% ... kind of fishy. That's strike 1. But you wouldn't be "out" until a few instances that filled all the criteria happened. And this count would reset every certain cycles depending on their data.

Not a complete resolution, but it would create some sort of limitation. But we don't have the data. We don't know how often a DC from the server is without the logout triggered during combat actually happens so thinking of a resolution for a problem we have no idea if they even track is kind of tough. They may not even audit that particular table.

 

[Drakkir]

The easiest way would be to impose a fine or something similar upon certain conditions being met. It's obvious that closing the process can be triggered in a few different ways that circumvent the game, but the breadcrumb trail and the information after would be pretty obvious.

The biggest problem is finding a way to discern the legitimate connectivity issues with the intentional. I think if a user has certain circumstances happen a few times and not at other times it would create a map of when/where they'd use it. For example 4 hours of play but they only disconnect when their shields are at 45% ... kind of fishy. That's strike 1.

Again, there is no authorative server that manages that information. Your client, the ED Software YOU are running is doing all your processing for you and reporting back just statistics. So all that stuff you're talking about can't apply as there is no server possible to KEEP tabs... They have written the game in such a way that it can't be. The only fix is to rewrite the game from scratch in essense making a whole new game.

 

[Quineloe]

The easiest way would be to impose a fine or something similar upon certain conditions being met. It's obvious that closing the process can be triggered in a few different ways that circumvent the game, but the breadcrumb trail and the information after would be pretty obvious.

The biggest problem is finding a way to discern the legitimate connectivity issues with the intentional. I think if a user has certain circumstances happen a few times and not at other times it would create a map of when/where they'd use it. For example 4 hours of play but they only disconnect when their shields are at 45% ... kind of fishy. That's strike 1.

That would require a permanent upstream of far more data than the client is sending now to even know. It's impossible on a technical level. The server right now does not know at what % your shields are.

 

[Briarée]

you need to read the thread Its a p2P game there is no "server" to host the ghost ship, the only thing that could do it is the remaining cmdrs PC and that would be insecure. Also read up regarding "player A" severing the p2p connection between him and his opponent. They dont even need to disco, just stop talking to the other PC, handshake to the matchmaking server remains in place and it just looks like a peer connection failure.

If there was any intention to hand over control over your ship to someone else then it would have been done by now, this is an issue that is going on 10 months old.



You are of course correct, my initial response was slightly off the cuff due to the volume of threads on the matter. A better reply would have been its very difficult to fix in a satisfactory manner, more so in a P2P game with no overriding authoritative server in place.

and?

how does it change the fact tat this can be done? quick answer, it doesn't!

all client in same instance have all the telemetry required for doing so, the only issue one could argue about would be that this could be cheated provided the instance only contain 2 players and one disconnect, but even that is irrelevant compared from today since it wouldn't be harder nor easier than actually abusing the system and doubling your shield rate for example.

furthermore, there is still server validation so the server is able to find and send back all the required info for the player to connect back to the correct instance and resume controling his ship should it still be alive.

all this only prove one thing: p2p should NEVER be used for online gaming to avoid paying servers

 

[Ixnatifual]

In the MMOs I know (WoW, GW2, SWTOR, Rift, TESO, TSW, ...) there are nearly no or absolutely no consequences when your character dies. In the worst case you have to repair your armor for some bucks. Thats it. The players don't have a reason to combat log. The reason for combat logging is the loss of money (espacially for traders). When FD would reduce this penalty people would stop combat logging IMHO.

Another solution could be to separate those who want PvP from the others in open mode:

When choosing open mode you must decide if you want PvP or not. After that you are put in an instance with people with the same selection. People without PvP can not be shot by other players.

You can't combat log in those games. Your character will stay in the game for a period if you alt+f4, so doing it during combat is usually a guarantee that you'll die. People don't combat log there because it doesn't work.

 

[Drakkir]

and?

how does it change the fact tat this can be done? quick answer, it doesn't!

all client in same instance have all the telemetry required for doing so, the only issue one could argue about would be that this could be cheated provided the instance only contain 2 players and one disconnect, but even that is irrelevant compared from today since it wouldn't be harder nor easier than actually abusing the system and doubling your shield rate for example.

furthermore, there is still server validation so the server is able to find and send back all the required info for the player to connect back to the correct instance and resume controling his ship should it still be alive

You're not getting it.. the FD servers only RECORD information. They don't control. Thus they can't PUT a ghost ship there because they have no control. The way the software is engineered makes it impossible.

 

[Korvinus]

I refuse to play until they fix this. So yes, fix this please devs. It renders Open Play unbearable. And no, I don't find Solo play enjoyable so nobody suggest that.

 

[Flyinpiranha]

Again, there is no authorative server that manages that information. Your client, the ED Software YOU are running is doing all your processing for you and reporting back just statistics. So all that stuff you're talking about can't apply as there is no server possible to KEEP tabs... They have written the game in such a way that it can't be. The only fix is to rewrite the game from scratch in essense making a whole new game.

That would require a permanent upstream of far more data than the client is sending now to even know. It's impossible on a technical level. The server right now does not know at what % your shields are.

Ah. I get it. Guess that's it then. Nothing you can really do about it. Which actually is fine by me, PVP was never supposed to be a focus but I know some are looking at this game for it.

 

[SKudder]

You can't combat log in those games. Your character will stay in the game for a period if you alt+f4, so doing it during combat is usually a guarantee that you'll die. People don't combat log there because it doesn't work.

Yes, I know this. But even if it would be possible, nobody would do it, because the consequences of losing a fight are nearly zero. That is what most big MMOs do.

 

[Rivka]

you need to read the thread Its a p2P game there is no "server" to host the ghost ship, the only thing that could do it is the remaining cmdrs PC and that would be insecure. Also read up regarding "player A" severing the p2p connection between him and his opponent. They dont even need to disco, just stop talking to the other PC, handshake to the matchmaking server remains in place and it just looks like a peer connection failure.

If there was any intention to hand over control over your ship to someone else then it would have been done by now, this is an issue that is going on 10 months old.



You are of course correct, my initial response was slightly off the cuff due to the volume of threads on the matter. A better reply would have been its very difficult to fix in a satisfactory manner, more so in a P2P game with no overriding authoritative server in place.

I think part of the problem here is what is super obvious to a human being isn't so obvious when you delve into the code. For example, the two "big" things people are pulling are terminating the game process, and pulling the network cord. The solution to abnormal process termination and intentional connectivity issues won't be the same.

The process termination side (alt-f4) is a relatively easy thing to check and fix, speaking in general. I've got a "crash handler" for my web browser, so sticking something similar into the Elite client shouldn't be an issue. If the client terminates abnormally, it sends a report in to Frontier. A pattern of program terminations during specific game activities (and attempts to kill the crash handler) can start throwing up red flags at FD for further investigation.

The network cable pulling, that will take a little more ingenuity to pull off. You can pull some things with connection checks to verify exactly what's happening with the client. Network loss during specific activities can be logged, flagged, and reported back to Frontier, again for further digging into.

The third, and least reliable fix overall ends up being simple player reporting. An account popping up with 30 different player reports all mentioning some form of mysterious connection loss could again be a good reason to look further in-depth on the account. Who knows, maybe the person being reported just has really super bad internet, and they can be gently nudged to solo. Maybe it's an ISP issue that Frontier can ID and ask the relevant ISPs to fix (actually happened over in Eve).

I' pretty sure we'll never get an "automatic fix" for those behaviours like in other games, but if the countermeasures keep 90% of the playerbase honest, it's a net win. The vast majority of people pulling "combat logging" aren't techs. They read about an easy way to save their ship on forums/reddit/whathaveyou, and that's what they're doing. They aren't going to be configuring complex router whitelists just to play a game.


Also, the silence from FD on the topic is kind of a good thing. If it were totally unfixable, I'd expect to see a CYA style announcement saying that "combat logging" was perfectly fine. Since they haven't, it's a pretty safe bet to assume they've got SOMETHING in the works, they just aren't mentioning it till they have everything ready to go.

 

[Drakkir]

Also, the silence from FD on the topic is kind of a good thing. If it were totally unfixable, I'd expect to see a CYA style announcement saying that "combat logging" was perfectly fine. Since they haven't, it's a pretty safe bet to assume they've got SOMETHING in the works, they just aren't mentioning it till they have everything ready to go.

Or just the opposite, there is no Fix possible. Honestly I don't think they really care about these things at this time. They have too much time/effort still going into development for them to waste resources on the whining things happening here. Except for the obvious like people inside space stations, dumbfiring missles at people and then docking. Or people dieing due to PDF hitting stations... Those they are working on and have said they are.

 

[Rivka]

Or just the opposite, there is no Fix possible. Honestly I don't think they really care about these things at this time. They have too much time/effort still going into development for them to waste resources on the whining things happening here. Except for the obvious like people inside space stations, dumbfiring missles at people and then docking. Or people dieing due to PDF hitting stations... Those they are working on and have said they are.

You may not think it's important, but plenty of people do. It deserves exactly the same amount of attention that dumbfire missiles, PDF, etc get.

Don't forget, there's also the 500lbs elephant in the room that is the Race To Elite. The gaming media (and regular media for that matter) loves controversy more than anything, and I'm pretty sure FD are going to want to stomp out any chance of cheating/unfair advantage allegations before they roll the media storm that will be awarding those prizes.

You know just as well as I do, that IGN, gamespot, and god knows how many other gamer oriented websites will be throwing out "Did Frontier allow person X to cheat their way into a 10K prize? Click and find out!"