A Simple Solution to Combat Logging

[Crimson Kaim]

1st confirmed log - 24 hour ban to solo
2nd confirmed log - 30 day ban to solo
3rd confirmed log - Permaban to solo.

No, just no. Combat logging is an exploit abuseable in any mode. Especially in solo (for example against thargoids) this is an issue. I have seen player combat logging against NPCs in open so many times. It happens more frequent in PvE most likely because they have no fear some NPC could report them.

Replace solo with a ban from the entire game and this is a good approach. But all in all I prefare something completely different, which is an automatic response from the client/server or whatnot.

Logged out or disconnected (for whatever reason) while in combat? Ship destroyed and login back to a rebuy screen with all consequences like respawning to the nearest station.

You can even do this local on everyone's machine by just writing an encrypted logfile that contains this information. Upon terminating the game or a los connection the logfile obviously persists and the game can check wheather upon the next log in wheather it was a good or bad log out. To avoid abuse, the logfile must have the same date as the last save of the CMDR save file which is not saved locally but retrieved from FDev servers (just in case players want to delete this file).
Ofcourse this is not "the" solution but an idea for an approach that might work. And it's nothing more than a .txt file.

 

[M00ka]

It’s still truly amusing that grown adults are still whining that people won’t play with them.
I wonder how long it will go on...unfortunately I will be working the rest of the week so will need to let you all complain at each other without my helpful interjections. Laterz everyone. Try not to get too upset now - it’s only a game.

It is truly amusing that grown adults admit that reading anything more than a single sentence is beyond their capabilities.

I wonder how long it will go on, fortunately I was raised and educated to be cognisant of others, especially if they take the time to respond to a post of mine, I will take the time to read it and if need be, reply to it. That way people won't make silly complaints that I think I am better than everyone else or that I am just a common troll - and not a very efficient one at that!

 

[Sup3rfluiD]

forget clogging, i cant even connect to xb live, and im on sat broadband. Stupid fires

 

[Eliza]

forget clogging, i cant even connect to xb live, and im on sat broadband. Stupid fires

I hope for your country that you'll be relieved soon. It's a real mess what we all are doing to this blue marble called "home".

 

[Sup3rfluiD]

I hope for your country that you'll be relieved soon. It's a real mess what we all are doing to this blue marble called "home".

me too, its like being a pack a day smoker atm. So many losing everything they got

 

[Eliza]

me too, its like being a pack a day smoker atm. So many losing everything they got

In eastern germany we had some serious fires last year too. Not so serious as right now in Aussi-land, but nevertheless. At nights I could see the looming red shine of the forest-fires on the horizon. It must be really scary to witness a fire that scales as yours right now.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

No, just no. Combat logging is an exploit abuseable in any mode. Especially in solo (for example against thargoids) this is an issue. I have seen player combat logging against NPCs in open so many times. It happens more frequent in PvE most likely because they have no fear some NPC could report them.

Replace solo with a ban from the entire game and this is a good approach. But all in all I prefare something completely different, which is an automatic response from the client/server or whatnot.

Logged out or disconnected (for whatever reason) while in combat? Ship destroyed and login back to a rebuy screen with all consequences like respawning to the nearest station.

You can even do this local on everyone's machine by just writing an encrypted logfile that contains this information. Upon terminating the game or a los connection the logfile obviously persists and the game can check wheather upon the next log in wheather it was a good or bad log out. To avoid abuse, the logfile must have the same date as the last save of the CMDR save file which is not saved locally but retrieved from FDev servers (just in case players want to delete this file).
Ofcourse this is not "the" solution but an idea for an approach that might work. And it's nothing more than a .txt file.

Unfortunately, it's entirely possible to forcibly disconnect someone else. (Although I don't know how personally, but I've been told. Lol)

So your suggestion is way to heavy handed, especially taking in to consideration the other two types of disconnections, internet(or WiFi) drop, and CTDs, neither being the fault of the player.

Best option is still what I suggested, only allow them to return to the mode they was in when they existed ungracefully in combat.
If a pretty explosion is that important, you'll wait for them. Lol

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Unfortunately, it's entirely possible to forcibly disconnect someone else. (Although I don't know how personally, but I've been told. Lol)

So your suggestion is way to heavy handed, especially taking in to consideration the other two types of disconnections, internet(or WiFi) drop, and CTDs, neither being the fault of the player.

Best option is still what I suggested, only allow them to return to the mode they was in when they existed ungracefully in combat.
If a pretty explosion is that important, you'll wait for them. Lol

Lag switching. I have no idea how it works but it somehow forces someone to lag out. Its probably similar to the way we used to crash peoples yahoo messenger with bot accounts back in the early 2000s

 

[Han_Zen]

No, just no. Combat logging is an exploit abuseable in any mode. Especially in solo (for example against thargoids) this is an issue. I have seen player combat logging against NPCs in open so many times. It happens more frequent in PvE most likely because they have no fear some NPC could report them.

Replace solo with a ban from the entire game and this is a good approach. But all in all I prefare something completely different, which is an automatic response from the client/server or whatnot.

Logged out or disconnected (for whatever reason) while in combat? Ship destroyed and login back to a rebuy screen with all consequences like respawning to the nearest station.

You can even do this local on everyone's machine by just writing an encrypted logfile that contains this information. Upon terminating the game or a los connection the logfile obviously persists and the game can check wheather upon the next log in wheather it was a good or bad log out. To avoid abuse, the logfile must have the same date as the last save of the CMDR save file which is not saved locally but retrieved from FDev servers (just in case players want to delete this file).
Ofcourse this is not "the" solution but an idea for an approach that might work. And it's nothing more than a .txt file.

That would be annoying for me. I menu log almost every time I play RES or CZ. Not because I'm losing, but because RL calls in some way.
Having to wake out before logging of would add extra time to the process. It's bad enough that I have to wait 15 sec. to confirm the logout.
I would rater have a 30 sec logout, with direct confirmation.

 

[galahad2069]

So now players can DDOS your internet connection, basically making so that your internet connection is overloaded, and thus your client cannot maintain connection and you have now by your own suggested rules combat logged and upon next logon, you must now be punished....


No way this would be abused in any way... as the evidence that people are doing exactly this in other games, the DDOS part, do however suggest that this is something player do engage in, especially if they can gain something from it, like lulz for forcing you to the rebuy screen...

How many DDOS attacks have you had lately?

Ye, cheaters exist, you can report them and (hopefully) they get banned for it, there isn't really anything else you can do about it.

As things stand now, cheaters can give themselves invulnerable shields using hacks. Should fdev remove shields? Or should ships be made unable to move because cheaters using the trainer can make their Conda capable of boosting 1000 m/s?

 

[Daffan]

Combat logging is a major exploit in player versus player combat, and a timer is not enough to mitigate this issue. Some players have suggested to increase the timer, but this does not prevent exiting by pulling the network cables. The ideal solution is as simple as allowing the player to quit the game, but for their ship to remain in that instance unless they are docked at a station or there are no hostile players/NPCs in that instance. To prevent the server from flooding, a time limit could be implemented - eg. the ship remains in that instance for 10 minutes before being removed.

This mechanic is present in many multiplayer games and I don't see this as being too hard to implement. There may be better solutions out there, but the current state which allows you to exit and your ship disappears immediately is inappropriate for a game with PvP combat.

The best part about this topic, is it's something I wrote about and read about in 2014 and this is my first foray onto the forums in like 3 years and still, it's on-going as if people expect this game to turn around.

This game will never have even 'average' quality level PvP functionality. This was proven half a decade ago with PowerPlay, ya know the dead on arrival expansion where people farmed defensless bots in Solo. FD does not care about PvP, Open or anything more than puddles.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Noobs man, noobs

 

[Crimson Kaim]

That would be annoying for me. I menu log almost every time I play RES or CZ. Not because I'm losing, but because RL calls in some way.
Having to wake out before logging of would add extra time to the process. It's bad enough that I have to wait 15 sec. to confirm the logout.
I would rater have a 30 sec logout, with direct confirmation.

High waking takes exactly 15 seconds. Granted the hyperspace time on top but that's about it. It's the same. Also I am more referring to task kill instead of menu logging. Menu logging can stay as it is (for now, imo).

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Unfortunately, it's entirely possible to forcibly disconnect someone else. (Although I don't know how personally, but I've been told. Lol)

I don't understand this. Does it mean that player A can cause player B to disconnected without B's consent while A remains connected?

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

I don't understand this. Does it mean that player A can cause player B to disconnected without B's consent while A remains connected?

Yes exactly see my previous post about lag switches

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Yes exactly see my previous post about lag switches

Interesting, I have never heard about it before so I can't comment on anything that takes this into account. Need to do some research first.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Interesting, I have never heard about it before so I can't comment on anything that takes this into account. Need to do some research first.

I only learned about it this past year. Its a shame the lengths some people will go to ruin someone else's, a complete stranger no less, good time. Should be considered a form of terrorism and punished as such imo

 

[galahad2069]

I don't understand this. Does it mean that player A can cause player B to disconnected without B's consent while A remains connected?

Even if it was possible, some dedicated software would most certainly be required, they couldn't possibly do it manually. How would it work? "Okay, I'm under attack, so I'll just alt-tab out of the game, let's see what I should do now to be able to see the IP address of the other player, okay, now how should I overload his connection without overloading my own..."

How many times could the other player shoot down the drifting ship while its owner was fiddling around outside of the game?

And if the cheater used a dedicated software to do it automatically, he might as well have used the trainer to just give himself infinite shields instead...

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Even if it was possible, some dedicated software would most certainly be required, they couldn't possibly do it manually. How would it work? "Okay, I'm under attack, so I'll just alt-tab out of the game, let's see what I should do now to be able to see the IP address of the other player, okay, now how should I overload his connection without overloading my own..."

How many times could the other player shoot down the drifting ship while its owner was fiddling around outside of the game?

And if the cheater used a dedicated software to do it automatically, he might as well have used the trainer to just give himself infinite shields instead...

More than likely its software they have up and running that lags out everyone in the system but them. I imagine it would be similar to chat bot booting we used to do on yahoo messenger about 20years ago. Its probably the same basic idea evoled for a decade or so. Seeing as I have no idea how this stuff works I'm just guessing based on things that I do kind of know about so don't take any of this as fact

 

[Morbad]

Unfortunately, it's entirely possible to forcibly disconnect someone else. (Although I don't know how personally, but I've been told. Lol)

Only from you or systems you have control over. You can't disconnect someone else from Frontier or other peers that may be present.

Ideally, even if one could isolate specific connections and block traffic, the game should be able to route around such a block (either via TUN/TURN servers or using other peers as relays) with barely a perceptible hiccup, so the only reliable way to sever connections with any peer would be to sever connections with all of them and Frontier...but the game's networking doesn't appear to be anywhere near ideal.

Even if it was possible, some dedicated software would most certainly be required, they couldn't possibly do it manually. How would it work?

Resource Monitor see what IPs were connected to EliteDangerous64.exe and a command prompt to throw said IPs into the Windows' firewall with netsh advfirewall firewall is about as complex as it needs to get. Could probably be done in three seconds if someone had practice and both windows up.

Of course that's not going to cause their client to crash or disconnect from the game as a whole, but it will probably remove them from your instance and look like any other combat log from the perspective of both peers.