[Suggestion] to cut down on combat loggers.

[Omegahunter]

How about this as an idea to stop at least some of the combat loggers.

A built in emergency jump system, activating it will always get you out of danger but at the cost of up to an 80% hit on all components and hull.
Starting with maybe a 10% hit first time you use it increasing every following use till it hits the max.
With a one month cooling off timer reset.

Cheaper than a rebuy but not a free ticket.

Once this has been accepted for a few months Frontier could add in that any disconnect during combat will be considered to be the same as using this option and add this damage to any commander's ship.

A one off use of this or a PC crash / internet drop would only hurt a little to an innocent commander but a constant combat logger will find it starts to cost more and more doing so.

 

[Cmdr Nemo]

How about this as an idea to stop at least some of the combat loggers.

A built in emergency jump system, activating it will always get you out of danger but at the cost of up to an 80% hit on all components and hull.
Starting with maybe a 10% hit first time you use it increasing every following use till it hits the max.
With a one month cooling off timer reset.

Cheaper than a rebuy but not a free ticket.

Once this has been accepted for a few months Frontier could add in that any disconnect during combat will be considered to be the same as using this option and add this damage to any commander's ship.

A one off use of this or a PC crash / internet drop would only hurt a little to an innocent commander but a constant combat logger will find it starts to cost more and more doing so.

Assuming one has a good internet connection, that's a "fine" (excuse the pun) suggestion. But us that live in third word (I'm in Mexico) have except in the centro areas of large cities the old system known as dial up. In my barrio, there is 25 homes with a dial up connection, there is no other choice. Each home has two parent and numerioys children. Doing the math, there's approximately 125 to 150 people using the same feeder from our local phohe company. When it's busy, the one who's been on line the longest or lives further from the companies connection feeder gets bumped off thus it would seem that I deliberately logged off, when in reality, I lost my connection. In a 10 hour play session, I get bumped off an average of 4 times, and have to reconnect which can take several attempts. It sucks, but if one wants internet service here, there's no other choice. So, how would your suggestion determine a deliberate vs a server or connection disconnect?

ED is the only game I have, that the powers that be changed it to now play on line all the time or not at all. There was a time it used to have an off line play, but halted it. Thus we using the outdated but only available connetion (dial up) are forced to play on line when because of the unreliable connection and the constant getting bumped off, we would really rather not.

 

[Omegahunter]

Yours would be a worse case, but as I said this would only be applied if you disconnected during combat. Not every dropped connection in your 10 hour session would be under combat conditions (normal flight, fsd jump, docking etc)
That in itself should removed 90 percent of your disconnections from being counted. Unless you spend most of your time doing combat?
In which case you will already be look at as a combat logger by a lot of the people who play against you.

If you are getting one drop every 2 hours then only 1 disconnect every 30 hours would possibly be up for getting fined.
Depending on how you infact play this could be a low as much as 1 in 50 hours.

Not saying my idea is perfect but its does try to balance hurting innocent players against combat loggers while giving everyone a new game tool to use.
Also it can be adjust as to how hard it hits the player and the drop of timer once it has.


It should be noted that the current friendly fire fine has a 6 day wait timer, and I got caught out by the bounty for shooting a wanted ship bug only last weekend.
6400 credit fine and having to wait before I can go back to that system to pay it. Also had a NPC bounty hunter interdict me for it a few hours later.
That might have been because of a bug but most of us have been punished in game for something that wasn't our fault ( when a NPC flies in to our weapons fire).

At least with my idea players that really don't want to fight have another option to use before pulling the cable. This has to be weight against the cost of a fine on an innocent player.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I suggested a system that just logs when your ungracefully exit the game during any form of danger, for any reason.
Then when you log in, you can only return to that game mode for 30 minutes or so.

It won't stop combat logging, but if there's a chance you'll end up back with your attacker, you'll think twice and just run away properly.
For PvE, random disconnects and crashes, or station ramming avoidance, it wouldn't matter, as you'd generally be logging back in to the same mode anyway.
It'd only effect those pulling the plug, and then logging in to solo to complete their trip, etc.

 

[CMDR Spadino]

Assuming one has a good internet connection, that's a "fine" (excuse the pun) suggestion. But us that live in third word (I'm in Mexico) have except in the centro areas of large cities the old system known as dial up. In my barrio, there is 25 homes with a dial up connection, there is no other choice. Each home has two parent and numerioys children. Doing the math, there's approximately 125 to 150 people using the same feeder from our local phohe company. When it's busy, the one who's been on line the longest or lives further from the companies connection feeder gets bumped off thus it would seem that I deliberately logged off, when in reality, I lost my connection. In a 10 hour play session, I get bumped off an average of 4 times, and have to reconnect which can take several attempts. It sucks, but if one wants internet service here, there's no other choice. So, how would your suggestion determine a deliberate vs a server or connection disconnect?

ED is the only game I have, that the powers that be changed it to now play on line all the time or not at all. There was a time it used to have an off line play, but halted it. Thus we using the outdated but only available connetion (dial up) are forced to play on line when because of the unreliable connection and the constant getting bumped off, we would really rather not.

I totally understand and support this statement. I also live in the third world (yes, is it real, is not just a word...), in Brazil. Here, I have cable connection, so not so bad, but the service is very unreliable: many times in a day I cannot get connection to the server, maybe due to poor traffic management; many times also we suffer of poor speed and frequent resetting of the modem. So, an off-line mode would be a very minimum - in term of a real life implementation, where many people do not have a proper, modern infrastructure - anyway, I simply cannot support some kind of behavior which could impair a, even if small, percentage of players.

A week ago I was mining, with my keelback and, suddenly, I was attached my a wing of pirates. I was escaping, when my connection got resetted. After I logged back, my ship was still under attach, forcing an eject. Hopefully, I contacted the support and I discovered that if was a bug. I got my the value of my ship back - I play in ironman mode, so no insurance for me... - but I had lost all the cargo and a full session of painite mining...
So, we need a proper mechanic to avoid more bugs.

- - - Updated - - -

I suggested a system that just logs when your ungracefully exit the game during any form of danger, for any reason.
Then when you log in, you can only return to that game mode for 30 minutes or so.

It won't stop combat logging, but if there's a chance you'll end up back with your attacker, you'll think twice and just run away properly.
For PvE, random disconnects and crashes, or station ramming avoidance, it wouldn't matter, as you'd generally be logging back in to the same mode anyway.
It'd only effect those pulling the plug, and then logging in to solo to complete their trip, etc.

As I wrote in my last post, the one of us that live in third world county do not have proper, reliable connection. Many time my connection is resetted when I'm combatting, escaping, mining or jsut traveling around. I strongly prefer a proper escape pod implementation, as I asked for many times. And no, sorry, but unless the game could grant any player a strong, reliable internet connection, I do not accept that some player got impaired for that.

 

[clivewil]

Unless you spend most of your time doing combat?
In which case you will already be look at as a combat logger by a lot of the people who play against you.

this sounds like my situation, Australia's internet is abysmal and is only going to get worse due to our internet specs being written and implemented by a bunch of suits instead of techs

my disconnections happen either during mission stacking or combat in a RES, mostly because that's what my gameplay used to consist of (i say 'used to' because the disconnections have actually got so bad i've stopped playing. other games are fine, only ED is a problem)

i only fight against NPCs but nobody seems to be factoring that into their equations, so if these new systems were real i'd already be out on my ear

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

The system I suggested literally only punishes you if you intentionally combat log in PvP.

Examples,
You're killing newbies in Eravate, in Open in your FDL.
Adles Armada jump in and start kicking your butt. You won't win.
You pull the plug.
When you reconnect, you'll only be allowed to join your last mode, which would be open.
And the Adles Armada ships might still be waiting.
You must continue in Open for 30 minutes (or whatever) before being allowed to mode switch.

Sure, it doesn't fix loggers who simply don't come back, but then that's their choice, and you can't stop it anyway.

Or example 2.
You're in solo. In combat, and your internet dies unexpectedly.
You log back in to solo and continue as normal.

Its only real side effect is if you're in combat and get disconnected just before you plan on mode Switching for better missions.

 

[Xender]

Assuming one has a good internet connection, that's a "fine" (excuse the pun) suggestion. But us that live in third word (I'm in Mexico) have except in the centro areas of large cities the old system known as dial up. In my barrio, there is 25 homes with a dial up connection, there is no other choice. Each home has two parent and numerioys children. Doing the math, there's approximately 125 to 150 people using the same feeder from our local phohe company. When it's busy, the one who's been on line the longest or lives further from the companies connection feeder gets bumped off thus it would seem that I deliberately logged off, when in reality, I lost my connection. In a 10 hour play session, I get bumped off an average of 4 times, and have to reconnect which can take several attempts. It sucks, but if one wants internet service here, there's no other choice. So, how would your suggestion determine a deliberate vs a server or connection disconnect?

ED is the only game I have, that the powers that be changed it to now play on line all the time or not at all. There was a time it used to have an off line play, but halted it. Thus we using the outdated but only available connetion (dial up) are forced to play on line when because of the unreliable connection and the constant getting bumped off, we would really rather not.

I really don't like peoples who's playing online games and they complain about their internet connection. It is totally your problem that you are disconnected from time to time and game can't have exploits in order to fix your connection problems. Just think about Counter Strike Global Offensive - no matter if you quit on your own or you was disconnected, in both scenarios you will loose and be punished with temporary matchmaking ban.

 

[Bazziegamer]

Id suggest this:
You can log off from the game anytime you want, combat or not. However if you log off while not docked on either station/outpost/base or landed on a planet and theres another player near to keep the session going, your ship stays in game for a minute and will be vulnerable and unmanned. After the minute it disappears.

A minute really should be enough to finish a combat logger and this minute doesnt apply to solo play and if theres no other player near in PG and open to keep the session going it also doesnt apply.

 

[Xender]

Id suggest this:
You can log off from the game anytime you want, combat or not. However if you log off while not docked on either station/outpost/base or landed on a planet and theres another player near to keep the session going, your ship stays in game for a minute and will be vulnerable and unmanned. After the minute it disappears.

A minute really should be enough to finish a combat logger and this minute doesnt apply to solo play and if theres no other player near in PG and open to keep the session going it also doesnt apply.

It is the best solution, however it is not possible to implement in Elite because ED is p2p based game ;(

 

[StiTch]

How about this as an idea to stop at least some of the combat loggers.

A built in emergency jump system, activating it will always get you out of danger but at the cost of up to an 80% hit on all components and hull.
Starting with maybe a 10% hit first time you use it increasing every following use till it hits the max.
With a one month cooling off timer reset.

Cheaper than a rebuy but not a free ticket.

Once this has been accepted for a few months Frontier could add in that any disconnect during combat will be considered to be the same as using this option and add this damage to any commander's ship.

A one off use of this or a PC crash / internet drop would only hurt a little to an innocent commander but a constant combat logger will find it starts to cost more and more doing so.

It's a free "magic escape" button once a month.

I have no idea how you think this cuts down on CLing. If anything, it will make someone that CLs feel vindicated for being given magic escape options.

 

[CMDR_Elver]

Id suggest this:
You can log off from the game anytime you want, combat or not. However if you log off while not docked on either station/outpost/base or landed on a planet and theres another player near to keep the session going, your ship stays in game for a minute and will be vulnerable and unmanned. After the minute it disappears.

A minute really should be enough to finish a combat logger and this minute doesn't apply to solo play and if there's no other player near in PG and open to keep the session going it also doesnt apply.

I like the sound of this and been thinking along the same lines. Safe areas to log off stations etc. Planet surfaces with a time limit if other players in instance. Everywhere else unsafe, so if a disconnection happens the players ship is still in the game perhaps even being controlled by A.I. or just heading at the last known heading/speed etc. This could be for a set amount of time possible 5 minutes but may have one minute of immunity to damage which should help those with connection problems.

 

[Omegahunter]

It's a free "magic escape" button once a month.

I have no idea how you think this cuts down on CLing. If anything, it will make someone that CLs feel vindicated for being given magic escape options.

It's not a free one, I did say you would take increasing damage each time you use it. Then you would need at least a one month gap after the last time you used it before it might reset or start to decrease.

Using it in any condition would incur damage hence a cost even in combat. So using it means the other side know you might have escaped but it wasn't cost free.
But people that always use it to get away from combat would end up taking the maximum damage every time.

If this was then added to everyone that combat logged they to would start to pay for damage to their ship and not get away for free.
This won't stop everyone from doing it but at some point it will become cheaper for some to stay and fight / try to get away in game, or even just take the loss and pay the rebuy.

Yes there will be people that feel that they got unfairly treated because of crashes out of their control but the game is already full of times where that happens

 

[Omegahunter]

Id suggest this:
You can log off from the game anytime you want, combat or not. However if you log off while not docked on either station/outpost/base or landed on a planet and theres another player near to keep the session going, your ship stays in game for a minute and will be vulnerable and unmanned. After the minute it disappears.

A minute really should be enough to finish a combat logger and this minute doesnt apply to solo play and if theres no other player near in PG and open to keep the session going it also doesnt apply.

I like the sound of this and been thinking along the same lines. Safe areas to log off stations etc. Planet surfaces with a time limit if other players in instance. Everywhere else unsafe, so if a disconnection happens the players ship is still in the game perhaps even being controlled by A.I. or just heading at the last known heading/speed etc. This could be for a set amount of time possible 5 minutes but may have one minute of immunity to damage which should help those with connection problems.

Two points to rase.
1: How is the missing players ship kept in game? Replaced by an NPC ship being simulated on the remaining players machine. Open to possible exploits.

2: Does the combat logger return to find their ship has be destroyed in their absence and a rebuy screen? If so people that have crashes etc will be complaining. If not then this has no effect on the combat logger, but at least the remaining player feels vindicated.

- - - Updated - - -

Not saying any of the idea above are right or wrong each as its good and bad points.
It's good we are talking about it, we might come up with something Frontier could use (in the end they will go/ or not with whatever they want).

But this issue has always been a problem to deal with and we would be luck if we could come up with a solution that keeps everyone happy.

 

[CMDR_Elver]

Two points to rase.
1: How is the missing players ship kept in game? Replaced by an NPC ship being simulated on the remaining players machine. Open to possible exploits.

2: Does the combat logger return to find their ship has be destroyed in their absence and a rebuy screen? If so people that have crashes etc will be complaining. If not then this has no effect on the combat logger, but at least the remaining player feels vindicated.

- - - Updated - - -

Not saying any of the idea above are right or wrong each as its good and bad points.
It's good we are talking about it, we might come up with something Frontier could use (in the end they will go/ or not with whatever they want).

But this issue has always been a problem to deal with and we would be luck if we could come up with a solution that keeps everyone happy.

Yeah there may be some insurmountable technical (p2p) issues with the idea, which I'm tying get to understand as a layman. Definitely that's are what forums are for, I have sympathy for people with bad connections. Just try a make it as fair as possible to allow genuinely disconnected players to log back in.

1. If a disconnected an error report triggers an A.I., where A.I.'s usually run from. Exploits?

2. Basically yes. If the ship is destroyed the disconnected player returns to Rebuy screen. If involved in combat at time of the crash the benefit of the doubt should go to the remaining player.

 

[Bazziegamer]

Two points to rase.
1: How is the missing players ship kept in game? Replaced by an NPC ship being simulated on the remaining players machine. Open to possible exploits.

2: Does the combat logger return to find their ship has be destroyed in their absence and a rebuy screen? If so people that have crashes etc will be complaining. If not then this has no effect on the combat logger, but at least the remaining player feels vindicated.

- - - Updated - - -

Not saying any of the idea above are right or wrong each as its good and bad points.
It's good we are talking about it, we might come up with something Frontier could use (in the end they will go/ or not with whatever they want).

But this issue has always been a problem to deal with and we would be luck if we could come up with a solution that keeps everyone happy.

The ship is kept in game by another commander in the instance (if there isnt then you will just immediatly disappear), and it will be unmanned and head in the latest direction and speed the combat logger headed.

now my idea for crashes: FD could add a timer to the main menu so when you disconnect you can screenshot the error message with the timer to make it authentic and send that to customer support to proof that you actually disconnected instead of logging out.
If your entire game crashes you get the option to send a crash report, this could also be used as proof of a forced disconnect.

 

[Omegahunter]

The ship is kept in game by another commander in the instance (if there isnt then you will just immediatly disappear), and it will be unmanned and head in the latest direction and speed the combat logger headed.

now my idea for crashes: FD could add a timer to the main menu so when you disconnect you can screenshot the error message with the timer to make it authentic and send that to customer support to proof that you actually disconnected instead of logging out.
If your entire game crashes you get the option to send a crash report, this could also be used as proof of a forced disconnect.

You idea for crashes wouldn't work, I've seen the game crash without giving an error message and other times just totally lock my PC up or even just cause a reset. Also seen the graphics crash leaving the game running in the background not allowing to you either get to desktop or make the game quit.
This is before you even start to think about how to handle a broadband or dialup modem disconnection or even a good old power cut.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

My internet disconnects constantly. I'd actually stop playing if I needed to speak to support 10 times a day.

 

[Xender]

If someone have problems with connection or his PC it shouldn't affect the developers and they should implement combat log punishment. Just imagine that that you have, a broken car. You can not drive faster than 10 km/h and it frequently stops and cooldown few minutes. Do you think that you will be allowed to use this car on public roads without risk of being punished? Problems of minority can't affect the majority.

Of course combat log punishing won't mean that each time your PC crash or connection break, you will be destroyed. It will happen only during log off in combat situations.

 

[Bazziegamer]

My internet disconnects constantly. I'd actually stop playing if I needed to speak to support 10 times a day.

Only if your ship is destroyed when you log back in