A request for FDev; please provide an update regarding Logging/Combat Logging

[verminstar]

I was doing the escape pod CG yesterday when some guy interdicted me (in a FDL, of course). I immediately submitted (because it's IMPOSSIBLE to stop a player interdiction) and patiently waited for a message. Nope, lasers. Keep in mind, I'm not wanted or pledged to a faction. I'm flying a chieftain.

So we go round and round for a little bit. None of my weapons are engineered yet, and he's disabling my targeting and lobbing fistfuls of Macross Missiles at me (packhounds) I manage to get him down to 60 hull and I'm down to about 35. I decide now is the time to run, because I don't want to give some lulzgriefer the satisfaction of killing someone who, from an RP sense (not that I'm an RPer) is doing what another player recently referred to as "God's work", rescuing people.

So I low wake, cos I didn't have time to go into the map, and of course he interdicts me again, instantly. I immediately go into the menu to log out, wait the 15 seconds, and at the 1 second mark, it CANCELS my log out, closes the start menu, and puts me into normal space....so I have to open the menu again, and wait _20_ seconds this time!?!

I still manage to log out, with about 13% hull left, and of course, here come the messages..... "Blah blah if you wanna log stay in solo" I explain that griefing someone who's doing rescues in the CG is not cute, and that I exited via the menu as is allowed. 5 or six more butthurt messages later ("A logger is a logger" etc), I wished him good luck with his future trolling and advised that if he doesn't want people avoiding him, maybe he should not attack them out of the blue for no reason.

Of course he won't listen, because a griefer is a griefer. If you want to ruin my fun, as is allowed, I will gladly counter by ruining yours, as is allowed. What's funny is I've only been playing since Feb, and I'd only been interdicted (both times attacked and killed for no reason, no cargo, no message) by other players twice ever. Go into the CG and it happens 4 times in one day. If FDev wants community events to have a sense of community, then figuring out a way to deal with toxic, bored players (who probably had a friend baby them through the entire engineering process and/or are following griefer template builds) would be an important order at hand.

I feel like you have to have a certain level of intelligence and patience to play this game, so I often wonder how these childish jerks managed to get as far as they have.

Unfortunately, this is an all too familiar scenario. Its been pointed out many times by many different players on many different threads that by far the biggest turn off with open is the toxicity of pvp players. They say it only takes a few rotten apples, but in the time Ive spent in open, taking into consideration how many times Ive so much as seen another player, the majority of times its a rotten apple scenario.

Maybe Im just unlucky...whatever the case, its getting really, really boring now ^

 

[Billkwando]

An unfortunately perfect example of why I've never bothered with Open, and one revealing the corrosive mentality of 'free-for-all' players, i.e. selfish, and wishing to impose their playstyle on everyone else.

I do wonder if FDev could compile demographics on gankers/griefers, as I'd be curious to see exactly what age groups tend to fill their ranks. If feels like a very internetz culture raised on memes with an obsessive desire to protect what's tantamount to anonymously abusive/bullying behaviour; that their right to do whatever they wish supersedes everyone else's, and that no one ever has a right to feel aggrieved. Individual right > communal or collective.

And yeah, it is a microcosm of much of the world today, but it doesn't have to be that way. This is a frikkin' videogame, of all things, and can thus be curated.

Are FDev trying to show any leadership or direction on this? Because it feels like they're just trying their hardest to avoid coming up with solutions to improve the culture of Open. It may well be chaotically unfixable, but I'm not sure whether they're even trying (unless they somehow believe gating Powerplay will help reduce ganking).

I doubt they will do much, as the gankers and griefers buy skins, etc. Funnily enough, I have purple exhaust and lasers. A couple purple ships too. Cos I like purple, not because I'm part of the Ganksters' Union.

Unfortunately, this is an all too familiar scenario. Its been pointed out many times by many different players on many different threads that by far the biggest turn off with open is the toxicity of pvp players. They say it only takes a few rotten apples, but in the time Ive spent in open, taking into consideration how many times Ive so much as seen another player, the majority of times its a rotten apple scenario.

Maybe Im just unlucky...whatever the case, its getting really, really boring now ^

Other than the couple guys I ran into in the past 4 months, pre-CG (and mind you, this is my FIRST CG, so a great user experience it has been, with the rampant toxicity) I've met some really nice people. I met nice people the night before, in the same CG. I noticed gankers never come around when there's more than one ship waiting for pods, because they know they will suddenly become an impromptu wing, and beat dat azz when they open fire. We would just park, do barrel rolls, check out each others' ships......one guy just sat there and let me practice my circle strafing (which I can't do in combat quite yet) on his ship (minus the actual shooting, of course).

Again, I've met some really nice folks. Before I realized how toxic people were, and before I found out what "o7" was (I still don't know what it actually means means) I would greet fellow players with "Any good pizza places around here?". Sometimes I would get a funny answer back ("Baker's Prospect!") and that would be it, and sometimes I would make a friend.

I still always o7 live people wherever I see them (unless they're interdicting me, haha) but I haven't used the pizza line in a while, partly because people will use any excuse to attack you, or none at all, and that's just sad. Also, because I don't want them to think I'm playing some stupid griefer game with them.

Here's what I mean:

A couple says ago, I'm sitting (by myself, of course) in the Salvageable Wreckage area, in the CG, and some guy pops in. He flies up to the side of my ship (which was a Beluga at the time, btw) and starts typing "Pick a number between 1 and 4".

Seeing this is going nowhere good, and I'm probably about to get killed, I refuse to play his game, or give him the satisfaction of going "Guess what? I'm gonna kill you no matter what you pick!".

Me: "mein" (this was a typo)
Him: "Speak english so I can understand you"
Him: "Hurry up, answer now"
Me: "nein" (what I meant to type initally, the joke being that it's German for "no" and sounds like the number 9, which is not between 1 & 4)

Naturally, he opens fire on me. I managed to hit him with a little laser and about 4 missiles before I blow up, losing about 90 escape pods I'd been collecting for about 2 hours. After that, the Beluga thing became decidedly less funny, and I later switched to collecting pods in a corvette (which still probably wouldn't have saved me, but I would've had more time to escape). Naturally, I played in solo for the CG the rest of that night. So much for community.


The thing is, there ARE lots of great people, but it takes a ton of them to stack up to the negative and time wasting experience of dealing with one dumb griefer.....one who types like he's 16 years old.

 

[Hairy Polo]

This trader knew what to do. Just recently pirated. Traders should expect to be pirated. Top Cmdr, well played o7

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/hairy-polo/video/51553724

 

[Marly mark]

07 is a salutation. The 0 is your head, the 7 is your arm bent up to your head in a salute. Thus 07.

 

[verminstar]

This trader knew what to do. Just recently pirated. Traders should expect to be pirated. Top Cmdr, well played o7

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/hairy-polo/video/51553724

On day 2 playing this game, I was interdicted by two nice guys who seemed quite cordial, asked fer 2t of what I was carrying as a gesture of good faith on my part, as they could see I didnt have much. As in I had nothing in my cargo hold at all...and they insisted on having 2t of cargo as a gesture of good faith...when pointed out I didnt have anything, the normally quieter of the two told me they didnt care if I had anything or not, they wanted 2t of cargo...or else.

Ye know where this is going right?

Those two ruined the game fer you if ye ever try and pirate me...if escape is impossible, Id rather suicide and lose everything rather than give ye that pleasure. That level of trust simply no longer exists...to be caught out once was bad enough...twice would be on me so there wont be a twice and I treat every pirate encounter exactly the same as a result ^

 

[Fray]

This trader knew what to do. Just recently pirated. Traders should expect to be pirated. Top Cmdr, well played o7

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/hairy-polo/video/51553724

'Cept we're not actually discussing piracy, and barely anyone ever has an issue with it done 'properly'?

 

[verminstar]

Problem being that anyone who has been here a few years can tell ye that this has been an ongoing issue fer as long as they have been here...some from day 1 and still...here we are none the wiser. Many consider it quite normal and justified.

While Ive personally never clogged and never will, I wont judge those who do...their game, their choice, play and let play...me, I just move back to solo when I get to the point where I just cant be bothered with the bubble and go exploring again. When yer in the black, mode choice becomes irrelevant but screenshots are better in solo so...

However...4 years on and still no update. The thread is optimistic, but ye wont win if yer not in as they say...I applaud the effort. Not wanting too pee all over the campfire, just putting things into perspective ^

 

[znôrt]

'Cept we're not actually discussing piracy, and barely anyone ever has an issue with it done 'properly'?

while that's quite noble and a lot of fun, and perfectly valid gameplay, that's not piracy done properly at all. if the victim is not forced to comply it's just not piracy, it's roleplaying. the victim could have perfectly highwaked or combat logged, and the pirate could have done nothing. this is the consistent complaint of most pirate players there have been in the game.

there's no intermediate: it's either the victim showing the finger, or the victim actively agreeing to be pirated for fun. the only alternative is the victim being destroyed because of having little knowledge of the game. that doesn't even qualify as piracy mechanics, let alone 'proper'.

 

[verminstar]

while that's quite noble and a lot of fun, and perfectly valid gameplay, that's not piracy done properly at all. if the victim is not forced to comply it's just not piracy, it's roleplaying. the victim could have perfectly highwaked or combat logged, and the pirate could have done nothing. this is the consistent complaint of most pirate players there have been in the game.

there's no intermediate: it's either the victim showing the finger, or the victim actively agreeing to be pirated for fun. the only alternative is the victim being destroyed because of having little knowledge of the game. that doesn't even qualify as piracy mechanics, let alone 'proper'.

Problem being, how do ye get players to enjoy the experience enough to actually be appealing enough to indulge the role play aspect? This game already appeals to a niche audience as it is...genuine role players are almost as rare as a niche within a niche game...if that makes sense.

The fly in the ointment being consequences...or lack thereof. Crime and punishment brought a few, but it was a feeble effort at best...not havin a dig at frontier over that one, just saying what I think of it as I am one the few fans of the new system...for a first attempt, the foundations seem solid enough and in all fairness, they did actually say that was merely the first part of the crime and punishment changes.

While I wont judge anyone who does clog, my suggestion to fix it wont win me too many friends here. Basically if the game records ye as taking any damage at all when ye lose connection, then the next time ye log in will be on the rebuy screen. Exceptions would be made fer edge cases where players have a genuinely bad connection obviously, but just like real life insurance claims, more than once or twice and it becomes quite suspicious as it suggests an habitual routine.

However...ye need to ask frontier about that

 

[znôrt]

Problem being, how do ye get players to enjoy the experience enough to actually be appealing enough to indulge the role play aspect? This game already appeals to a niche audience as it is...genuine role players are almost as rare as a niche within a niche game...if that makes sense.

The fly in the ointment being consequences...or lack thereof. Crime and punishment brought a few, but it was a feeble effort at best...not havin a dig at frontier over that one, just saying what I think of it as I am one the few fans of the new system...for a first attempt, the foundations seem solid enough and in all fairness, they did actually say that was merely the first part of the crime and punishment changes.

While I wont judge anyone who does clog, my suggestion to fix it wont win me too many friends here. Basically if the game records ye as taking any damage at all when ye lose connection, then the next time ye log in will be on the rebuy screen. Exceptions would be made fer edge cases where players have a genuinely bad connection obviously, but just like real life insurance claims, more than once or twice and it becomes quite suspicious as it suggests an habitual routine.

However...ye need to ask frontier about that

well, this thread is about clog but in this case (slightly offtopic, sorry) highwake is pretty equivalent in dumbing down the pirate mechanics. the problem is the little nuance the system allows for. implementing piracy properly is very difficult. there has to be an option for the victim to escape, even avoid the encounter altogether, but not too much. for the pirate there has to be pressure not to destroy the victim unless absolutely necessary. none of these factors exist in the game. yes, c&p was a fair attempt to solve one of them, but we will never know for sure if it actually works because the other (glaring) holes still exist. another hole is the existence of solo. say if there's hearsay that a system is hot with pirate activity, traders would find an alternate route, pirates would have to catch up. this is nuanced, good gameplay. however, traders can just jump to solo: game spoiled.

i agree with you that the response to clog should be drastic, it's the only way. the problem again is that some jerk may flood your router / game port with poisoned packets and forcibly disconnect you. this is not easy, but once figured out every "script kiddie" can do it at leisure. and i have little doubt it would be a thing in no time. so there's that, there's no solution to this without fundamental change in the architecture.

 

[NewBlacksmurf]

well, this thread is about clog but in this case (slightly offtopic, sorry) highwake is pretty equivalent in dumbing down the pirate mechanics. the problem is the little nuance the system allows for. implementing piracy properly is very difficult. there has to be an option for the victim to escape, even avoid the encounter altogether, but not too much. for the pirate there has to be pressure not to destroy the victim unless absolutely necessary. none of these factors exist in the game. yes, c&p was a fair attempt to solve one of them, but we will never know for sure if it actually works because the other (glaring) holes still exist. another hole is the existence of solo. say if there's hearsay that a system is hot with pirate activity, traders would find an alternate route, pirates would have to catch up. this is nuanced, good gameplay. however, traders can just jump to solo: game spoiled.

i agree with you that the response to clog should be drastic, it's the only way. the problem again is that some jerk may flood your router / game port with poisoned packets and forcibly disconnect you. this is not easy, but once figured out every "script kiddie" can do it at leisure. and i have little doubt it would be a thing in no time. so there's that, there's no solution to this without fundamental change in the architecture.

Ir maybe the simpler solution is just updates to the UI and adding an interaction with opt in/out rules.

I think the topic tends tends to go into a closed minded direction. The game is very unfinished in terms of what you’d expect from other online multiplayer games with PvE and PvP environments. Many of those games are often UI intuitive

this game isn’t and lacks direction so I’d argue that’s the simple thing to address

 

[Asp Explorer]

i agree with you that the response to clog should be drastic, it's the only way. the problem again is that some jerk may flood your router / game port with poisoned packets and forcibly disconnect you. this is not easy, but once figured out every "script kiddie" can do it at leisure. and i have little doubt it would be a thing in no time. so there's that, there's no solution to this without fundamental change in the architecture.

Now that is very very norty, completely illegal in some places, and has gotten people in legal trouble before - so nobody do that

The real issue is that there is nothing stopping gitted gud carebear saltlords dealing with pew-pews eight bytes of payload at a time.

 

[znôrt]

Ir maybe the simpler solution is just updates to the UI and adding an interaction with opt in/out rules.

yeah, opt in/out rules are a good alternative. that's why i welcome the pp open only thing. if you can't get the real thing, finding a way to group people with common interests may be a good thing. not for piracy, but for general pvp.

I think the topic tends tends to go into a closed minded direction. The game is very unfinished in terms of what you’d expect from other online multiplayer games with PvE and PvP environments. Many of those games are often UI intuitive

this game isn’t and lacks direction so I’d argue that’s the simple thing to address

that's the gist of it, and the solution would require exceptional audacity from the devs (just get it done) or be long term. because technically it's not a small thing. that's where some middle ground would be a good transition. and if the transition in the end never happens, then at least we would have had some cake.

 

[znôrt]

Now that is very very norty, completely illegal in some places, and has gotten people in legal trouble before - so nobody do that

it indeed is, but law enforcement has other priorities than to chase game griefers. and so do game developers unless they are fully invested in the competitive area, or even e-sports sort of thing. frontier has problems enough to deal with i think. it has to work out of the box. a solution requiring human monitoring and intervention is unlikely to be any good imo. precisely clog is a testament to that

The real issue is that there is nothing stopping gitted gud carebear saltlords dealing with pew-pews eight bytes of payload at a time.

blame my english language skills for not getting the last part of that, which i suspect is a joke i'm hating to miss. or mybe i'm just being dumb. or ... there is always tj!

 

[Asp Explorer]

I'm not going into details and I don't advocate such behaviour - but it's not a joke and you're not dumb - it's just that a carebear saltlord out to harvest PVP tears could in fact do so without resorting to pathetic script kiddie scrubbage, and indeed without sending anything at all.

 

[znôrt]

I'm not going into details and I don't advocate such behaviour - but it's not a joke and you're not dumb - it's just that a carebear saltlord out to harvest PVP tears could in fact do so without resorting to pathetic script kiddie scrubbage, and indeed without sending anything at all.

now i got it but, well, that's an universal salt constant in multiplayer games. that's on c&p, karma, that sort of stuff. game architecture can be very supportive (if nobody could happily clog, neither could the salt lord, other cmdrs could deal with him to a point!), but it's just not there yet.

 

[Hairy Polo]

while that's quite noble and a lot of fun, and perfectly valid gameplay, that's not piracy done properly at all. if the victim is not forced to comply it's just not piracy, it's roleplaying. the victim could have perfectly highwaked or combat logged, and the pirate could have done nothing. this is the consistent complaint of most pirate players there have been in the game.

there's no intermediate: it's either the victim showing the finger, or the victim actively agreeing to be pirated for fun. the only alternative is the victim being destroyed because of having little knowledge of the game. that doesn't even qualify as piracy mechanics, let alone 'proper'.

I'll remove Logging/Combat logging from this discussion for a moment. When pirating, the trader has options open to them. Either comply and get 24hrs of protection. Or attempt to escape. Both valid. If they do escape then good on them. If they have no cargo (I use a cargo scanner, or on small ships, a hatchbreaker to confirm if the trader has cargo or not), I'll leave them alone to go about their business, I certainly don't kill them. However, my success rate of stopping and disabling cargo carrying ships from jumping, by either taking out thrusters or using 'grom bombs', is quite high. My point being, either way, that IS 'proper piracy'. My job is to extract cargo without killing. Logging/Combat logging kills the experiance for both trader and pirate (I'm not talking about timed/menu logging as that is an FDev approved function - I might not agree with it but it is working as intended).

Just in case you were wondering, I can deal with traders that do not comply. Maybe less cargo (15t in this case) but usually no offer of 24hrs of 'protection' (not in this case - his cargo hatch malfunctioned I believe) - so normally, fair game again. http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/hairy-polo/video/50253623

 

[EponymousCowherd]

I'll remove Logging/Combat logging from this discussion for a moment. When pirating, the trader has options open to them. Either comply and get 24hrs of protection. Or attempt to escape. Both valid. If they do escape then good on them. If they have no cargo (I use a cargo scanner, or on small ships, a hatchbreaker to confirm if the trader has cargo or not), I'll leave them alone to go about their business, I certainly don't kill them. However, my success rate of stopping and disabling cargo carrying ships from jumping, by either taking out thrusters or using 'grom bombs', is quite high. My point being, either way, that IS 'proper piracy'. My job is to extract cargo without killing. Logging/Combat logging kills the experiance for both trader and pirate (I'm not talking about timed/menu logging as that is an FDev approved function - I might not agree with it but it is working as intended).

Just in case you were wondering, I can deal with traders that do not comply. Maybe less cargo (15t in this case) but usually no offer of 24hrs of 'protection' (not in this case - his cargo hatch malfunctioned I believe) - so normally, fair game again. http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/hairy-polo/video/50253623

That is what you do, and much credit to you for playing the the pirate role in a way that is fair and enjoyable for both parties.

Unfortunately, many who call themselves "pirates" aren't as honourable.

A "fix" for combat logging isn't going to happen anytime soon because ED uses P2P for instancing (the information about your opponent's ship (position, attitude, weapons fire, etc) is sent directly from their client to yours). The only record ED will have of a "log" is your video evidence. Changing to another method that does pass through ED's infrastructure is unlikely due to the massive rework required and the bandwidth costs on their servers. Arguments about how ED can prevent people from logging have been going on since GPP. People need to get used to the idea that logging is a thing in the game, and always will be.

So, if the PvP community truly want to do something about logging, the ball in in their own court. Sort out the elements of the PvP community that make non PvP orientated players fear that any player interdiction is a one-way trip to the rebuy screen. If folk can be fairly certain that, when you interdict them, they are going to be relieved of some cargo and released they will be far less likely to log on you. If they think that the encounter is going to be "Ha Ha. KABOOM", then the problem will continue.

One further point. You say you are very successful in preventing your victims from escaping using 'grom bombs'. So do many of the lolz-killers (or other engineered FSD or drive killer) so the "learn how to escape" line won't wash.

 

[verminstar]

I'll remove Logging/Combat logging from this discussion for a moment. When pirating, the trader has options open to them. Either comply and get 24hrs of protection. Or attempt to escape. Both valid. If they do escape then good on them. If they have no cargo (I use a cargo scanner, or on small ships, a hatchbreaker to confirm if the trader has cargo or not), I'll leave them alone to go about their business, I certainly don't kill them. However, my success rate of stopping and disabling cargo carrying ships from jumping, by either taking out thrusters or using 'grom bombs', is quite high. My point being, either way, that IS 'proper piracy'. My job is to extract cargo without killing. Logging/Combat logging kills the experiance for both trader and pirate (I'm not talking about timed/menu logging as that is an FDev approved function - I might not agree with it but it is working as intended).

Just in case you were wondering, I can deal with traders that do not comply. Maybe less cargo (15t in this case) but usually no offer of 24hrs of 'protection' (not in this case - his cargo hatch malfunctioned I believe) - so normally, fair game again. http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/hairy-polo/video/50253623

Unfortunately, most pirates are not role playing pirates at all and thats why this issue will not go away until the root causes are tackled. Tackling clogging is merely treating a symptom, not the cause...in medical terms, yer about to make a huge mistake of fixing the wrong thing while allowing the infection that started all of this to fester...so sooner or later, its gonna infect something else so ye back to playing whack a mole on the issue3s and all because ye didnt do anything about the root cause.

And that root cause is the toxicity of the pvp community. So many have pointed this out time and time again, and still...nothing is being done about it. There are no proposed changes to directly tackle it, and everyone is still focusing on the symptoms it causes and still ignoring the very thing that causes it in the first place.

This is why, until the pvp community admit to themselves they have a problem, nothing profound will ever change. So ye fix clogging...what then? Ye really think thats gonna cure the problem? I dont...in fact I think it could be the beginning of the end because it would take the entire playerbase to the point of no return. Some damage cannot be repaired afterwards...which could be why frontier appear to be dragging their feet on the issue. Because they too know that its not the clogging that is the real issue here...its the toxicity behind it ^

 

[Hairy Polo]

The two posters above this post; you have valid points. Not knowing if the next interdiction will be a killer. The message before and after does make a big difference though. I'm all for promoting piracy in ED. In fact this thread has turned in to a good opportunity to promote it.

As the original post stated though, isn't anyone just a little big interested on what or if FDev are doing in the background regarding Logging/Combat logging? I know I am.