An evening of combat logging with a surprise ending

[Lowievisser]

Agreed.
It also shows that players are basically selfish.
It amazes me how wound up some can get because they didn't get to kill that one little ship.
What difference did it make to your game?
What huge reward did you lose out on?

wy one way? it amazes me how wound up some can be of loosing 1 ship in OPEN. for a fart you have a new ship. But if you like a game full of cheaters , yeah then there is no problem at all.

it hurts sells too , looking at reviews , it can bite fd in the back

 

[PavelKCZ]

wy one way? it amazes me how wound up some can be of loosing 1 ship in OPEN. for a fart you have a new ship. But if you like a game full of cheaters , yeah then there is no problem at all.

it hurts sells too , looking at reviews , it can bite fd in the back

Well, if it is a big trading ship, there can be 5 milions Cr insurance and 5 milions Cr in lost cargo = 10 MCr.
It is a two hours non-stop trading grind to have all those money back. Not exactly a "fart".

 

[Lowievisser]

Well, if it is a big trading ship, there can be 5 milions Cr insurance and 5 milions Cr in lost cargo = 10 MCr.
It is a two hours non-stop trading grind to have all those money back. Not exactly a "fart".

it is , with that big ship you have a mil profit if you doing bad each trade run, so 10 trade runs = a fart.

OP story wasnt a trading ship.

We all know , dont undock without insurance , dont blame the attacker for that but the victem.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

… it amazes me how wound up some can be of loosing 1 ship in OPEN. for a fart you have a new ship. …

If someone has to play 3-4 hours to cover the insurance cost for that ship and only can play 4-6 hours a week then I understand why somebody might not be very happy if that ship gets destroyed.
(NO, that's not an excuse for combat logging)

 

[Ving]

It should be longer, making it a a bad idea to do in combat.

Maybe balance it with a reduced insurance cost (without bounties getting wiped) if the ship is destroyed while logging out. Attacker gets the kill, player trying to avoid destruction can't avoid it and will have to pay insurance, honest player who has to react to a RL emergency knows that he can exit with a reduced cost.
Everybody happy?

That's certainly part of the problem. The risk vs reward / loss is very unbalanced at the moment.

If you look at a game like WoW, for instance, even on a PvE server you have ways to PvP: arena, battlegrounds, PvP zones, 1-on-1 duals. I've never seen anyone 'combat logging' when they were about to lose a confrontation, in any of those situations, because there's nothing to gain by doing it. The loss is only pride, rank, or stats, none of which cost you potentially hours of game time.

 

[Lowievisser]

If someone has to play 3-4 hours to cover the insurance cost for that ship and only can play 4-6 hours a week then I understand why somebody might not be very happy if that ship gets destroyed.
(NO, that's not an excuse for combat logging)

For me thats the fun part in open , i have around that much play time. Little boring otherwise if you cant loose or lose anything.

2 freaking modes , and still combat logging , mindblowing

 

[Jordan Cobalt]

If someone has to play 3-4 hours to cover the insurance cost for that ship and only can play 4-6 hours a week then I understand why somebody might not be very happy if that ship gets destroyed.
(NO, that's not an excuse for combat logging)

That's the design of the game tho. Even if someone only does it in solo mode they still cripple the game. They might as well just have godmode enabled.

The risk is what balances the game. Running trade routes without shields is balanced by increased chance of getting killed. Not running from big bad pirates with a big bad bounty, is balanced because they can hand you your backside.

 

[DaveB]

It should be longer, making it a a bad idea to do in combat. ...

You stay on a constant course without maneuvering or firing back when I've been fighting you long enough to make you want to log and I'm still firing at you? Keep it up for 15 seconds, buddy, and you're so dead. it's long enough.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

…
2 freaking modes , and still combat logging , mindblowing

3 modes
Yes, it's sad that people still combat log even if they have all the options to reduce the risk of ship destruction. The problem is there are enough players who want to win, but aren't willing to lose.

 

[Lowievisser]

Yep , i ment 2 easy modes , solo and the group thingie

 

[DaveB]

... Running trade routes without shields is balanced by increased chance of getting killed. Not running from big bad pirates with a big bad bounty, is balanced because they can hand you your backside.

Damn, never thought I'd actually rep a scurvy pirate for being a pirate...

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

That's the design of the game tho.

Sure it is, just like "not wanting to get the ship destroyed" is part of the game design. Understanding why somebody might feel frustrated about ship destruction doesn't mean that I think combat logging is something good.

Even if someone only does it in solo mode they still cripple the game. …

Not sure about that. It doesn't affect other players in Solo directly and I don't think that the effect on the background simulation is big enough to have any meaningful influence. Not that I'm advocating combat logging in Solo. Combat loggers in Solo are cheating themselves.

- - - Updated - - -

You stay on a constant course without maneuvering or firing back when I've been fighting you long enough to make you want to log and I'm still firing at you? Keep it up for 15 seconds, buddy, and you're so dead. it's long enough.

I wanted to give pirates some time to do what they might want to do …

 

[lonewarrior]

Agreed.
It also shows that players are basically selfish.
It amazes me how wound up some can get because they didn't get to kill that one little ship.
What difference did it make to your game?
What huge reward did you lose out on?

Ok imagine this:
-
NPCs dissapear on shield fail
Cargo dissapears on trying to sell it
Rocks dissapear when mining
No money for missions
No money or recognition for exploration discoverys
Only way to get money is kill a player with a bounty ( who can easily combat log)
-
These would all be equivilanet of PvP combat logging in other areas
-
Eventually PvP could potentially die from the game which is a blow to sales for certain player groups, you could even say at least 25% regularly get involved in PvP and that's a lot to lose, with all of the above the game would die in hours
-
It cost me around 30,000 in repairs and ammo and shield cells and I missed out on any bounties the opponent had
-
Now imagine that all the above was caused by bugs in the next update, and now imagine that FD say they arnt going to fix it, that's how people feel about combat loggers who encounter it a lot

 

[Jordan Cobalt]

Sure it is, just like "not wanting to get the ship destroyed" is part of the game design. Understanding why somebody might feel frustrated about ship destruction doesn't mean that I think combat logging is something good.

The game has it's own mechanics for reducing loss, or the chance of loss. Combat logging is an exploit to get around those mechanics.

Not sure about that. It doesn't affect other players in Solo directly and I don't think that the effect on the background simulation is big enough to have any meaningful influence. Not that I'm advocating combat logging in Solo. Combat loggers in Solo are cheating themselves.

The combat loggers in solo are cheating themselves in solo, if they only stay in solo. If they come into open, they are cheating everyone they encounter in open. Since the game allows switching between modes on the same character someone can easily grind solo with godmode enabled(aka save-scumming, aka combat logging). The worst part is can they also enable it in open too.

So you're right, someone doing it in solo doesn't matter much, if they stay and only do it in solo.

 

[Jordan Cobalt]

You stay on a constant course without maneuvering or firing back when I've been fighting you long enough to make you want to log and I'm still firing at you? Keep it up for 15 seconds, buddy, and you're so dead. it's long enough.

15 seconds would be long enough, if you knew they were doing it and only wanted to kill them. It's sadly lacking for "legit" pirates. It takes longer than 15 seconds for the hatch breaker to work, that's not even including travel time and how long it take for all 10 tons of cargo to fall out.

 

[Ari Ben Zayn]

Well, FD disagree with you then. They have said specifically that gracefully exiting the game is OK, not frowned upon, and won't get you banned.

And "combat logging" is...

For clarity’s sake, “combat logging” is when a Commander ungracefully exits the game (e.g. using ALT + F4 then shutting down the game process) to avoid defeat, destruction and damage.

Thanks for that quote. I guess this basically ends that discussion right there
"Hit ESC, log out, wait 15s, poof" - not an exploit, not cheating.
use the taskmanager to kill elite.exe - exploit, cheating.

 

[Morbad]

Well, FD disagree with you then. They have said specifically that gracefully exiting the game is OK, not frowned upon, and won't get you banned.

And "combat logging" is...

I think you are taking FD too literally. The timer is there because the game can't just say "no, I won't quit", and alt+F4 never worked anyway.

But that aside, you completely missed the point of my post which is that the game mechanics suck.

The game mechanics "suck"ing are irrelevant to this discussion.

People know, or should know, that combat logging is cheating, and just because they can do it doesn't mean they should.

The fact that you feel upset that another player might not want to lose 2 hours of game time so that you can have 5 minutes of fun pirating him shows just how difficult it is for FD to balance the game and keep everybody happy.

The fact of the matter is that I have never even attempted to pirate anyone.

Indeed, out side of conflict zones, I have virtually never fired upon any CMDR who did not adopt a hostile disposition first. I don't mount wake, warrant, or cargo scanners. I've mounted an FSD interdictor a grand total of one time, and used it twice, on NPCs. I have shot down several hundred CMDRs, but 75% of the time they started it, and 99% of the time they were asking for it. I do admit to a few mistakes here and there, but when and if I realize them, I make every effort to correct them.

Regardless, I'm still going to counter the assertion you have backed with your misplaced and completely incorrect assumption: Firstly, no amount of time or effort invested justifies cheating. Secondly, time and effort goes into all sorts of activities, and in PvP scenarios, the combat logger can easily cheat opponents out of their legitimate rewards for their investment, even if that reward is simply a foe's attrition. Thirdly, intentional disconnections to avoid legitimate negative consequences can harm the game for others, even if you aren't directly interacting with them.

Not sure about that. It doesn't affect other players in Solo directly and I don't think that the effect on the background simulation is big enough to have any meaningful influence.

Someone pulls the plug to save their Anaconda from destruction, they just gave themselves a ~15 million credit cash injection which can be spent in ways that could subtlety shift trade routes, faction influence, or power play rankings. It's true that one person won't do much, but the total sum of exploiting going on is probably significant enough to be noticeable.

It's like littering. One person littering doesn't do a lot, but everyone littering will turn any place with decent population density into a cesspool. One cheater, in and of itself, is not meaningful, but fifty thousand of them...

 

[A_Honcho]

I had an Anaconda do this to me last nighy I took his sheilds off and drives down so he couldn't jump out, next thing I know I'm doing no damage to him and he dissappears.
Really boils my blood.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

…

Someone pulls the plug to save their Anaconda from destruction, they just gave themselves a ~15 million credit cash injection which can be spent in ways that could subtlety shift trade routes, faction influence, or power play rankings. It's true that one person won't do much, but the total sum of exploiting going on is probably significant enough to be noticeable.

It's like littering. One person littering doesn't do a lot, but everyone littering will turn any place with decent population density into a cesspool. One cheater, in and of itself, is not meaningful, but fifty thousand of them...

Good point, thanks Morbad for the reply.


Thanks to Jordan Cobalt for your replies.

 

[Vaerkone]

And who do you think you are to tell me what games I should be playing? Those are my hardware / pet issues that are not of your concern.

Well actually, if your connection drops in the middle of every PVP encounter, it does affect the other player.

If you can't keep a stable connection because of your pets or a bad ISD, you are directly interfering with another players game time with out-of-game meta-mechanics. If your cat happen to unplug your internet cable everytime you are in combat, you should play Solo.

What I mean with that is; You should be banned from playing in Open.