A Simple Solution to Combat Logging

[Screemonster]

Meh. Rather FDev worry about creating actual real content than looking at this thread. They clearly cannot balance the game - it's been five years and the game remains a mess when considering balance. And game balance, in the context of risk versus reward, is the root of the problem here.

Only one person really cares about CL and it's that single individual who needs a special type of pixel experience to support their own shortcomings. That single individual cannot seem to accept anything else other than own satisfaction of supposedly being superior to the other player. Honestly, who cares if people log off whenever they want to. Let them. They certainly have the right to - it's their game experience. Those who cannot accept this should perhaps look at themselves asking why they can't accept the fact that people can do what they want with an online game.

The main issue is the people that mistake it for a competitive game with winners and losers rather than a simulator.
There are elements to the background simulation that are open to competition, like people trying to push one faction or another, and this was kinda exacerbated by allowing groups to add their own factions and plant their flag, but that sort of emergent gameplay was never really intended gameplay as I understand it, and was never designed to be decided by players facing off directly.

If there was a layer of the game that did count scores of kills and deaths outside of CQC, it would be more relevant.

 

[Eliza]

Let me try to explain again, since I don't think you quite got what I was trying to say.

Open PvE Mode (shooting disabled, ramming enabled as a mechanic, but ToS is no killing other cmdrs)

• PvE player: always tries to obeys the no killing rule
• "proper PvPer": plays in other modes, obeys the rules in Open PvE
• "griefer PvPer": attempts to cause mischief and kill other cmdrs by ramming

The only player getting bans would be the griefer, as logs would show repeat attempts at ramming other players.

Excuse me please!

Ramming is an absolute legit move within PvP. Your ship is a weapon. If ones is out of ammo or has the opportunity to safe ammo, one should always try to ram the opponent.

If you consider it as "causing grief", then you should consider to learn how to evade a ramming-attempt. Staying still and presenting your bottom to be kicked is not a fruitful tactic.

 

[M00ka]

Excuse me please!

Ramming is an absolute legit move within PvP. Your ship is a weapon. If ones is out of ammo or has the opportunity to safe ammo, one should always try to ram the opponent.

If you consider it as "causing grief", then you should consider to learn how to evade a ramming-attempt. Staying still and presenting your bottom to be kicked is not a fruitful tactic.

Really Commander, ramming is a legitimate tactic? Hell I only use it when one of us zips instead of zagging

 

[Jack Schitt]

Spoken like a griefer

Wow. That's a first.

Just to be clear, in case I've missed an implied wink, I'm not condoning the "eat a rebuy / mine the salt" mentality. Just saying that it's there. When I first composed that post I included several paragraphs detailing the difference between broadly symmetric combat (including arranged PVP challenges) and broadly asymmetric combat (including griefing at Engineer bases etc.), giving examples of each, and explaining why the proposed "emulated ship" solution was of minimal utility to the former and would incense practitioners of the latter by presenting them with a fake "win" while denying the salt.

When I re-scanned it for the nth time looking for typos, I realised it could be read as overly wordy, preachy and repetitive given that it covered a lot of ground we've already been over in this discussion. So I removed most of it, leaving the more succinct opening and closing paragraphs and hopefully allowing context to do the rest.

Maybe this is one of those threads where I should have embraced the repetition.

For what it's worth, I first alluded to the "nobody wins unless someone loses" problem in post #60...

It would give some continuity to the gameplay experience of the non-disconnecting player(s), but I remain sceptical about how much overall "satisfaction" it would provide to the playerbase as a whole. For example I would posit that anyone who has spoken of the pleasure obtained by "sending someone to the rebuy screen" would have that pleasure significantly reduced by the possibility that no player was, in fact, sent to the rebuy screen.

...again in post #120...

Already mentioned earlier but there are players for whom that would simply not be enough unless they were "sending someone to the rebuy screen". They're a subset of a subset but they're out there and they would likely be very vocal at the thought that their PVP kills weren't causing distress to another player.

...and again in #126 with a deliberate emphasis on the "some" in "some players"...

For some players (let me say that again: some players) it's precisely that. They can only win if someone else loses in the form of having to "eat a rebuy". The sweetest of all victories used to be against newer players in unfamiliar and expensive ships who were flying without insurance cover and who would create forum threads complaining about how they lost "everything" to "unfair" PVP. This allowed some parties to follow up the in-game PVP with some forum PVP. You don't see it as much these days since you can earn floods of credits just for sitting in the pilot seat and farting, which has made it quite difficult to accidentally fly without at least one rebuy in the bank. The newly introduced training area and associated mission(s) will also have helped with this.

[Edit: missed a quote]​

 

[Eliza]

Really Commander, ramming is a legitimate tactic. Hell I only use it when one of us zips instead of zagging

Maybe we should call it "unconsensual tactic" instead?

 

[Sylveria]

Wow. That's a first.

Actually, the same thought crossed my mind when I read that reply. You've actually always been one of the most "carebearish" players since the game was released (also implied by your avatar, which some seem to miss) and I've read a lot of your posts over the years- although you've somewhat adapted your tactics, you've not "crossed over to the other side" insofar as adapting their tactics. (at least as far as I know )

"nobody wins unless someone loses"

This actually (sort of) nicely sums up the meat of my own reply to yours, too. Which is - it's not about the effort one puts into a match, it's about the "end" result, which is what I was alluding to as well.

I tend to call people who view the end result as justifying the means "sore winners", because they lack any respect or grace for the game itself. And usually just leave people like that be, because eventually the quality of their character shall speak for itself. I'll let them learn the lesson in their own time.

It's really not about whether you "win" or "lose", it's about how you play the game. That's where respect is earned.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Wow. That's a first.

Just to be clear, in case I've missed an implied wink, I'm not condoning the "eat a rebuy / mine the salt" mentality. Just saying that it's there. When I first composed that post I included several paragraphs detailing the difference between broadly symmetric combat (including arranged PVP challenges) and broadly asymmetric combat (including griefing at Engineer bases etc.), giving examples of each, and explaining why the proposed "emulated ship" solution was of minimal utility to the former and would incense practitioners of the latter by presenting them with a fake "win" while denying the salt.

When I re-scanned it for the nth time looking for typos, I realised it could be read as overly wordy, preachy and repetitive given that it covered a lot of ground we've already been over in this discussion. So I removed most of it, leaving the more succinct opening and closing paragraphs and hopefully allowing context to do the rest.

Maybe this is one of those threads where I should have embraced the repetition.

For what it's worth, I first alluded to the "nobody wins unless someone loses" problem in post #60...

...again in post #120...

...and again in #126 with a deliberate emphasis on the "some" in "some players"...

[Edit: missed a quote]​

My bad, wink implied, sorry for the miscommunication

 

[Screemonster]

Excuse me please!

Ramming is an absolute legit move within PvP. Your ship is a weapon. If ones is out of ammo or has the opportunity to safe ammo, one should always try to ram the opponent.

If you consider it as "causing grief", then you should consider to learn how to evade a ramming-attempt. Staying still and presenting your bottom to be kicked is not a fruitful tactic.

Also, really, the examples given are why a PvE mode will never happen in a way that makes people happy. As long as there's some way to kill other cmdrs there will still be salt, and worst of all, any solution presented that solves 99.9% of ganking or griefing will still be shouted down as not good enough.

Perfectionism is the enemy of progress. If you refuse to agree to an imperfect solution to your problems, you'll never do anything at all and be left with the problems.

 

[Eliza]

Also, really, the examples given are why a PvE mode will never happen in a way that makes people happy. As long as there's some way to kill other cmdrs there will still be salt, and worst of all, any solution presented that solves 99.9% of ganking or griefing will still be shouted down as not good enough.

Perfectionism is the enemy of progress. If you refuse to agree to an imperfect solution to your problems, you'll never do anything at all and be left with the problems.

One of the reasons why I subscribed (sort of) to the "OpenOnly-Gang". This will also never happen due to the basic construction of the game. So I got over and accepted it. Same goes with clogging. Frontier admitted that they are not able to present a vital sollution, so I make the best of it. A clog of my target is a win by "throwing the towel".

 

[Bashy81]

Yikes, so the point for having OOPP is so that people should not be able to "hide" in Solo/PG.... and then you deliberately fails to understand the problem that 3 DIFFERENT platforms causes... that share the same universe, but we cannot see each other... so you on XBox, I am on Playstation and we have a 3rd person on PC, we all login to open, and we all fly top the same system... We cannot see each other, we cannot wing up, do multicrew etc... so what makes this so much different than playing in Solo/PG?


Timezones... they are quite relevant for similar reasons... as it does not really matter, you logon 18:00 UTC, plays for 4 hours, you will never see me, if my schedule makes me to login 06:00 UTC and playing for 4 hours... so I could as easilly be playing in solo, and you would be none the wiser about it....


It also seems that you do not really understand UTC, hardly surprising....

Its not a lack of understanding, its more a lack of ignorance.

Its not me versus you in powerplay, its large group actions. If im a-bed before you log on, then one of my US, European or Aussie comrades will be around, and that possibility is what makes you fit a shield and/or larger thrusters, and pay attention in-game so you cant act like a min-max bot all day without a chance of regular nasty surprises. So no, its not like youre playing in Solo.

Crossplay would be nice, but might swamp instances, and treating them like pockets in a war-front as we do now is fine. Organising coverage across timezones and platforms is all part of organising a power.

 

[Screemonster]

One of the reasons why I subscribed (sort of) to the "OpenOnly-Gang". This will also never happen due to the basic construction of the game. So I got over and accepted it. Same goes with clogging. Frontier admitted that they are not able to present a vital sollution, so I make the best of it. A clog of my target is a win by "throwing the towel".

Honestly, imo the simplest way to make an "open-pve" or "restricted-pvp" mode would be simply to disable weapon damage if the target is clean, has weapons stowed, has crimes on, is not of an opposing powerplay faction to the attacker, and hasn't fired upon another cmdr in the current instance. Further refinements like offering no protection in "hazardous" areas like CNBs, CZs and anarchies would also be good.
People would still be able to kill each other, even pull off the occasional ambush by following someone into a CZ and ganking them there, but the typical "aaa four FDLs grabbed my paper explorer out of supercruise and killed me in five seconds" story would be a thing of the past and those are the kinds of fights people get salty about.

My biggest concern would be how to do it in a way that enables piracy. Allowing module damage but not "lethal" damage would lead to gankers shooting people's life support out and shooting them again when they reboot and threatening to post name-and-shame videos on reddit if they menulog, which will just be an annoying hassle for all concerned unless the player groups like AXI that have no-menu-logging policies update them to account for obvious "you're pulling a gank on a PVE-flagged player and holding them there" situation.

 

[Raino]

Honestly, imo the simplest way to make an "open-pve" or "restricted-pvp" mode would be simply to disable weapon damage if the target is clean, has weapons stowed, has crimes on, is not of an opposing powerplay faction to the attacker, and hasn't fired upon another cmdr in the current instance. Further refinements like offering no protection in "hazardous" areas like CNBs, CZs and anarchies would also be good.

And again - I am happy about every line of code which is NOT added,
those simple solutions mean multiple decisions every time someone is targeted and with our P2P system would cause even more delay as we already have

 

[Screemonster]

And again - I am happy about every line of code which is NOT added,
those simple solutions mean multiple decisions every time someone is targeted and with our P2P system would cause even more delay as we already have

Exactly. Every little "rule" that's added to try and cover every possible edge case is a performance overhead.

 

[Eliza]

Honestly, imo the simplest way to make an "open-pve" or "restricted-pvp" mode would be simply to disable weapon damage if the target is clean, has weapons stowed, has crimes on, is not of an opposing powerplay faction to the attacker, and hasn't fired upon another cmdr in the current instance. Further refinements like offering no protection in "hazardous" areas like CNBs, CZs and anarchies would also be good.
People would still be able to kill each other, even pull off the occasional ambush by following someone into a CZ and ganking them there, but the typical "aaa four FDLs grabbed my paper explorer out of supercruise and killed me in five seconds" story would be a thing of the past and those are the kinds of fights people get salty about.

My biggest concern would be how to do it in a way that enables piracy. Allowing module damage but not "lethal" damage would lead to gankers shooting people's life support out and shooting them again when they reboot and threatening to post name-and-shame videos on reddit if they menulog, which will just be an annoying hassle for all concerned unless the player groups like AXI that have no-menu-logging policies update them to account for obvious "you're pulling a gank on a PVE-flagged player and holding them there" situation.

Nice suggestion, really. No pun. But that will contradict to one of the basic "features" of the game, being a commander in a "Cutthroat Galaxy".
So this statement alone FORCES players to "gid gud" or die.

And in before someone here calls me a griefer/ganker: I consider myself as a "Griefer-Ganker" (in apprentice ).

 

[Lunchmoney]

. It really isn’t debatable that people combat log in order to avoid the cost of the alternative

People are here debating it; ergo debatable.

 

[Stigbob]

Excuse me please!

Ramming is an absolute legit move within PvP. Your ship is a weapon. If ones is out of ammo or has the opportunity to safe ammo, one should always try to ram the opponent.

If you consider it as "causing grief", then you should consider to learn how to evade a ramming-attempt. Staying still and presenting your bottom to be kicked is not a fruitful tactic.

Ramming is fine in PVP or to start PVP or just if you feel like doing it for giggles. Fill your boots and good luck its all good fun and your choice.

Do it anywhere near pads or the letterbox in a throwaway suicide ship and I'll block you. My choice.

 

[Eliza]

Ramming is fine in PVP or to start PVP or just if you feel like doing it for giggles. Fill your boots and good luck its all good fun and your choice.

Do it anywhere near pads or the letterbox in a throwaway suicide ship and I'll block you. My choice.

You'll never catch me, ramming a commander "just for giggles". This would be immature, to stay polite. But complaining about being rammed near a pad/outpost. You have nothing to fear about, unless you're not obeying to the number 1 rule: Speedlimit is BELOW 100m/s. If you're too fast, then it's your fault.

 

[Stigbob]

You'll never catch me, ramming a commander "just for giggles". This would be immature, to stay polite. But complaining about being rammed near a pad/outpost. You have nothing to fear about, unless you're not obeying to the number 1 rule: Speedlimit is BELOW 100m/s. If you're too fast, then it's your fault.

I'll land at whatever speed in the video game I feel like thanks, usually I go in on boost and use the control tower as a "brake". As long as you have tanky shields everything's good. Not getting reckless flying fines means you are just not trying hard enough.

I've never actually lost a ship to the station greifers even pre-speed limit, probably down to my zero tolerance policy of just blocking them all on sight. Got very bored of them in 2015 when they all hung around the Lave cluster.

The games better without them in it.

 

[Eliza]

I'll land at whatever speed in the video game I feel like thanks, usually I go in on boost and use the control tower as a "brake". As long as you have tanky shields everything's good. Not getting reckless flying fines means you are just not trying hard enough.

I've never actually lost a ship to the station greifers even pre-speed limit, probably down to my zero tolerance policy of just blocking them all on sight. Got very bored of them in 2015 when they all hung around the Lave cluster.

The games better without them in it.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Platform segregation or no, it's still better than what we have now.

I'm not gonna say anything else on the timezone thing. It seems silly to me.

Better than what? As it is now, you will NEVER see any of the players from the two OTHER platforms.... that share our game world...