An investigation into Frontier's actions on Combat Logging

[smiths121]

That's not really true though. Combat logging basically renders a whole segment of the game null and void. PvP. I realise that PvP isn't to everybody's taste and there are some very vocal and vociferous opponents to PvP within this community but that doesn't mean it's not a valid play style and one that should be protected to the best of FD's ability.

It's becoming apparent (I believe) that FD don't have the ability to mitigate this exploit, but rather than openly admit that and potentially lose the current and future PvP playerbase they seem to have chosen to lie about it and pretend to be doing something while doing precisely nothing.

Seems to me that Hello Games, erm I mean Frontier Developments have some work to do in restoring the faith of the segment of the playerbase who aren't completely blind to their failings. The whole community put its faith in FD over this issue and were told time and again that it was being looked at and that in the meantime offenders would be dealt with. That faith has just been destroyed.

The problem with your logic is size of the PvP player base. I believe it is probably smaller than the combat logging player base. If you go with me for a second, FD are not going to care about combat logging, ignore reports etc.

PvP needs some TLC, a much bigger thing of which combat logging is a part. I just do not think the PvP base is big enough to warrant the resource required, so more generic content is focussed upon. If I am right about the size, not sure how the situation will improve, need a player base to justify resource, need fixes to get player base etc.

Simon

 

[LexMoloch]

I have no pain I do not need to have evidence because SDC delivered it. If you prove something once, then its proven. More evidences will not make it more or less proven.
SDC proved FD is not even watching videos. And also true is FD is lying about punishing loggers. Lets negate that. What should happen with loggers IF FD would not lie? Then they should be punished somehowe.

You are focusing on something in the middle. That is actually logical error, because you should focus on what is at the end, and the end is binary. Combat logger punished, or not punished. Convicted, or not.
We can talk about FD actions to punish logger only when condition convicted would fulfiled.

It really no matter FD watched video or not. It really no matter what they did in the middle to confirm a cheater is cheater.

Important is fact they did nothing to punish the cheater - and this is on the end. And this SDC proven.

There is no error in logic despite you wanting to derail it towards that direction or changing the topic.
Focusing on the "middle" is very important, that's the process (any: scientific, judicial...) where the hypothesis gets rejected or not and criminals get convicted or not. If we remove all of it, all we get is SDC stating "FD is lying". People biased towards FD will not concur, people biased against them will.

As I have already stated, I agree we should get more information on the CL issue from FD, but taking the original post as anything more than anecdotal evidence is deeply flawed.

 

[amysteriousstranger]

Thank you for the info OP, this helps a lot

i have suspected this since I reported someone admitting to me they were hacking and they never received a ban, even with video evidence

This reminds me of why I quit playing Dayz, developers making promises for years and Not following up

FD although I'll play this game for now as I still have interest in it, that's 2/3 strikes for me, the first being the hacker I reported

Will not buy games from you in the future, and I suspect some others feel the same,

And for those of you that say it won't bother them, well it will in the long term if word gets out they let cheaters run free in their games

 

[Kyokushin]

Focusing on the "middle" is very important,

It no matter what is in the middle.
FD stated they will punish combat loggers. And punish is some action.
SDC did 'fake cheating' and FD did not took an action and do not punished fake account.
So prime state of FD is not true. They are not punishing combat loggers.

 

[CMDR Adelind]

Change CMDR to LGGR for repeat offenders. No need to ban anyone, socialising will do the rest.

 

[Kyokushin]

Change CMDR to LGGR for repeat offenders. No need to ban anyone, socialising will do the rest.

Beautiful

 

[LexMoloch]

"We will punish" is a politically safe statement meaning absolutely nothing. It does not reference a method of punishment or time frame in which some punishment will be applied. It also does not mean they are lying.
All it really is: a declaration of intent and clear stance by FD (Braben) that they don't condone combat logging. Wording is everything in this case.

Of course the lack of actual response is annoying to the sides in question. I hope you will get a reaction and clarification from FD on this matter, but don't expect that people will be banned or even warned for a case of few dropped connections... (what SDC did).

 

[Kyokushin]

"We will punish"

It means an action, we are not discussing how. There was no action. Nothing happened. And something should (as they stated).
There is easy to recognize difference between something and nothing.

You may have different opinion - and i respect that, questioning is a good thing, you may try to twist the logic as more as you like, but it do not change the fact a SDC proven FD is doing nothing.

 

[Kerrash]

I am curious. How many times was the test repeated per user account?

 

[Comrade Error]

Thank you for doing this.

Still no response from the cowards, not suprising either.

Funny how they wanted to go out of their way to not show combat loggers on their stream yet refuse to do anything about it.

 

[LexMoloch]

It means an action, we are not discussing how. There was no action. Nothing happened. And something should (as they stated).
There is easy to recognize difference between something and nothing.

You may have different opinion - and i respect that, questioning is a good thing, you may try to twist the logic as more as you like, but it do not change the fact a SDC proven FD is doing nothing.

"We will punish" is only a declaration of intent, and incomplete at that as it lacks any timeframe or additional details.

You don't know if there was an action or not. All you know, providing that the info OP provided is thrustworthy (and I will assume it is) is:
a) FD did not watch the videos provided before closing the ticket.
b) FD did not sent any information to offending accounts.


Stating "nothing happened" and "no action" is not correct. Correct way to state it would be "no action against acounts in question, that is verifiable by our testing method, has occured" since you don't have any insight into the complete FD ticket review process.

Now, FD may in fact be lying and simply doing absolutely nothing other that closing the ticket. We simply do not know that.

They very well may be recording every reported CL offense, confirming there was a player interaction prior to this, and ticking some "combat log counter" for the account in question. In no way can I confirm this, but you also cannot say it's not true. We simply do not know that.

We should probably quit this demagogic discourse because it's obvious you want this to read as "FD is lying!" and simply refuse to analyze the provided information objectively. I don't defend CLoggers, FD or SDC here, but it's all too easy to raise the pitchforks and scream murder. Mob mentality is dangerous.

 

[Taimaru]

It's also worth testing whether someone, who is not logged into Google/Youtube, views a YouTube video registers as a viewer count as I have found that it doesn't when looking at a friends video (or does it not register that count in real-time?).

 

[Howe]

This again, huh?

I can appreciate how annoying combat logging is for people who want PVP.

However, this game is a game in which PVP is not prohibited. That is a long, long, long way from a game in which PVP is encouraged and even further away from a PVP game. When asked for increased PVP opportunities, FD released CQC, which was about as far away from what PVP players wanted as possible. That should be a damned big clue as to how FD views PVP in their game. At best they are tolerant of it.

Open was designed as a co-op mode. Player Groups were meant for small groups of players, friends, to play in their own little universe. Solo is self-explanatory.

The truth of the matter is that PVP is not an intended game function and PVPers, while vociferous, are not the majority of Elite players. I just don't think Frontier consider this a high priority problem and you'll find the majority of players don't care, either.

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

I quote myself here. IMO best solution for all

The solution to this problem would be easy.

If you get destroyed by an other commander
-no insurance, you get ship back for free
-no loosing of exploration data, they should stay
-"just" loosing cargo of course, makes powerplay and CG counter still available

No changes when get destroyed by NPC

And surprisingly i would expect that 95% to 99% of players wouldn't combat log any longer

 

[Thetele]

This again, huh?

I can appreciate how annoying combat logging is for people who want PVP.

However, this game is a game in which PVP is not prohibited. That is a long, long, long way from a game in which PVP is encouraged and even further away from a PVP game. When asked for increased PVP opportunities, FD released CQC, which was about as far away from what PVP players wanted as possible. That should be a damned big clue as to how FD views PVP in their game. At best they are tolerant of it.

Open was designed as a co-op mode. Player Groups were meant for small groups of players, friends, to play in their own little universe. Solo is self-explanatory.

The truth of the matter is that PVP is not an intended game function and PVPers, while vociferous, are not the majority of Elite players. I just don't think Frontier consider this a high priority problem and you'll find the majority of players don't care, either.

The topic isn't about combat logging as they say it would be okey if frontier said that they don't do anything. But the point is that frontier have lied. They have stated that they will take actions and said in support tickets that they have looked at the chase when they haven't done either. This mean that we can't trust what frontier or support says. Support may say that some bug will be looked at etc. when the chase will be that they will ignore it.

People get stuck about that its related to combat logging when the point is that frontier and support do opposite what they say. Does it need to be topic that harm/impact you to make you realize that it isn't good if frontier say they will deal with x some specific way and then not do that.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

What ED might need is some reason for the PvPers to actually PvP against other willing challenging PvPers and keep them occupied with that rather than lowering themselves to attacking weaker targets.

Of course, wouldn't stop the PvPers from combat logging on each other, but then at that point it becomes a pure PvP problem.

While my suggestion about making Powerplay PvP only was not realistic, it was mainly there to show that there could be a mechanic which might give PvPers something to do that would not impact on the rest of the community.

Of course, the other option is for everyone who doesn't enjoy PvP to simply leave Open, but then, that would effectively make Open a PvP mode, and i don't think many people would want that.

 

[StuartGT]

What ED might need is some reason for the PvPers to actually PvP against other willing challenging PvPers and keep them occupied with that rather than lowering themselves to attacking weaker targets.

Of course, wouldn't stop the PvPers from combat logging on each other, but then at that point it becomes a pure PvP problem.

While my suggestion about making Powerplay PvP only was not realistic, it was mainly there to show that there could be a mechanic which might give PvPers something to do that would not impact on the rest of the community.

Of course, the other option is for everyone who doesn't enjoy PvP to simply leave Open, but then, that would effectively make Open a PvP mode, and i don't think many people would want that.

That's quite the tangent, and more suited to a different thread. Please stay on topic

 

[Agony_Aunt]

The topic isn't about combat logging as they say it would be okey if frontier said that they don't do anything. But the point is that frontier have lied.

So, what do you plan on doing about it, if you believe this?

Do you think FD are going to post here and say "Alright guys, you got us!" and then proceed to either deal with combat loggers harshly or make a new statement saying "Ok, we are not going to do anything about combat loggers"

Look at the realities of the situation and your options.

1) Believe they lied, accept it, and move on.
2) Believe they lied, don't accept it, quit the game, spread the word that FD lie, rage, go play SC, whatever.
3) Don't believe they intentionally or directly lied, give them the benefit of the doubt.

Or some other stance?

Me, i don't know. It certainly seems damning, but I have no knowledge of what actually happened, what is facts, what is conjecture, etc.

What i do remember is all those months where there was a similar thing with regards to people using cheating scripts. The cheaters were laughing, raking in big credits. Nothing seemed to happen. Then slowly, some people started getting short shadowbans. Then over the months, more and more started getting shadowbanned, and for longer. One guy reportedly lost 6 accounts due to bans, and then finally, FD killed the cheats from working (or at least the 64 bit version) and the cheaters then started crying.

Maybe one day, we will see a similar pattern starting, maybe when FD feel more confident they can identify intentional logs from random disconnects. Yeah, i'm sure plenty of people feel they have all the proof they need to act, but maye FD do not feel its sufficient yet. Maybe they need actual net logs that prove it, rather than suggest it when combined with videos. No idea.

However, i would love to be a fly on the wall in FD's office today, i think most of us could agree on that, regardless of our position

 

[Agony_Aunt]

That's quite the tangent, and more suited to a different thread. Please stay on topic

Hey! That's my line!

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

Just another dumb question:
If the Developers ban every people who have combat logged, how many people can play the game after this?

If you can answer this, than you know why FDev's didn't intervent on combat loggers