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Guarantee any simple solution to anything in Elite dangerous breaks the game
A Simple Solution to Combat Logging
- Thread starter Mimix
- Start date
Guaranteed if FD do manage to add something new that doesn't cause problems some here will still complain about it.
Fortunately my ego isn't so fragile
Good for you.
And for the majority, the repeated block, move on and forget about it, should work just fine...
But there is still the last few that want us to do everything we can to fix this "huge" issue... and then cherry picking the occasions to fix...
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saw I missed to miss to add the "" to huge
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What makes it impossible though? Somebody's client needs to build a working model of your ship in order to have your cmdr be in their game. Networking mandates that most of this work be done in the runtime. Otherwise you're subjecting the whole simulation to a massive bottleneck. Once it has a certain required amount of information, their runtime can manage your ship entirely on its own. The only thing it continually needs from you is updates to rectify state changes.
So what I'd guess happens is your client sends a dump of information to theirs at the start with all the relevant bits of your ship and cmdr, probably during the deceleration or drop-in poiint, and then only sends little updates about what you're doing after that.
So, stuff like, "I'm flying over here" or "I'mma firin mah laser!" etc. When they shoot you, they update you with something like "yo, I just shot u weak spot for massive damage". Now, to try to maintain integrity, it's probably not that simple. I don't know if clients check in with the Frontier servers at some point like a tick system or if there is some kind of AP system that ships deduct from so both clients can reason that what's happening now isn't far-fetched from what was happening a moment ago so you can't send an update that you just shot a guy with 10000 dmg or you have infinite bank and so on. But, what probably happens is that the communication becomes more simple after two ships are introduced.
So what makes it impossible again? Once they've got your ship in their game, their client can manage it same as yours can. You can say that trust issues arise, but I'd say that a total loss of connection is a trust issue too. So why should ultimate trust be put in the DC? I say for PVP it shouldn't.
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How large a segment of the player base does this 'huge' issue affect?
Perception of any issue is only 'huge' in the eye of the beholder... as is illustrated aptly by so many topics raised over minor bugs that are considered 'game breaking' by the poster.
I'm not debating that your, and a few others, consider something which is unlikely to be remedied, to be in your opinion a major issue - that is all fine and good.
Me, I'm just playing a game for entertainment and certainly won't get bothered how anyone else wishes to play nor wish to enforce my ideas of what appears 'right' on them, minor difference in perspective on my part, I guess.
Edit: grammar
Considering most people playing Solo or private group, I imagine not very many
But after thinking about this a little more in the context of Elite, I realize this would introduce a lag-switching and cheating minefield.
oh, I see that I missed to enclose huge in ""...
I do not really care about this. but when people propose fixes and then cherry picking when it should be fixed and when to not fix the what is the same issue, that I want to point out....
I have a feeling the reason this doesn't exist is to stop gankers from using network disruption tactics to do that very thing. That stops that from being an incentive at least.
I don't understand exactly what you are implying... If an issue is currently unresolvable - the operand is the last 2 words of the statement.
If soemone not wishing to enjoy your delightful company ungraciously exits the game to remove themselves why worry? Just chalk it up as a 'win' and carry on enjoying playing - there is currently nothing that can be done to 'force' the persistence of their pixels for you, no matter how 'badly' you wish it could.
Fdev have said they cannot do this because of the P2P architecture of the game - although I think this is a fib to bat the problem away personally.
I'd like to see the timer extended a bit (25 seconds), and a notification that the opponent has activated their logout menu in the system messages panel (because when pirating, traders often pretend to comply then activate their menu timer while they are stopped). I think that is fair.
Players who have a consistent pattern of losing connection after being interdicted by other players should be shadow-banned and have their BGS effects nullified.
Whatever any client does, all clients do. So if you lose connection with another player and his ship gets made into an NPC for you, your ship will also get made into an NPC for him. Think about it. That way lies madness.
<Edit> BTW this is why videos of people combat logging are useless as "evidence". While you're making a video of him "logging", he can make a similar video of you.
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That goes with the Good AI added to get them to not be pushovers.
It's a while back but I wanted to reiterate something I said earlier, regarding how some people seem to think that menu-logging or clogging should carry some significant penalty:
It's fine to want to win, it's fine to enjoy winning. Most games are designed so that at least one player has to lose for someone to win.
It's not fine to want to make other people lose, for its own sake. It's a pathological behaviour.
If someone genuinely can't enjoy a game, even if they 'win', unless they feel like someone else has lost, then I respectfully suggest that they should steer clear of playing games with other people completely until they've fixed that particular hang-up.
This isn't purely about online gaming; I've seen people behave like that in tabletop. Sometimes it even turns into behaviour where they don't care about their own victory, all they want to do is make the game as miserable as possible for the other players. Ultimately no-one sits down to a game with them any more, because playing with them just isn't fun. In the context of online gaming, it's not feasible to curate your experience to keep all such players at arm's length, and plenty of people with that attitude end up having it reinforced by other people with the same hang-up. In an open forum, you can't steer clear of them. If devs cater to that pathological attitude they are actively making their game worse.
It's fine to want to win, it's fine to enjoy winning. Most games are designed so that at least one player has to lose for someone to win.
It's not fine to want to make other people lose, for its own sake. It's a pathological behaviour.
If someone genuinely can't enjoy a game, even if they 'win', unless they feel like someone else has lost, then I respectfully suggest that they should steer clear of playing games with other people completely until they've fixed that particular hang-up.
This isn't purely about online gaming; I've seen people behave like that in tabletop. Sometimes it even turns into behaviour where they don't care about their own victory, all they want to do is make the game as miserable as possible for the other players. Ultimately no-one sits down to a game with them any more, because playing with them just isn't fun. In the context of online gaming, it's not feasible to curate your experience to keep all such players at arm's length, and plenty of people with that attitude end up having it reinforced by other people with the same hang-up. In an open forum, you can't steer clear of them. If devs cater to that pathological attitude they are actively making their game worse.
Technically the existing solution is the simplest one.
I wonder if they could add detection for things like a drive module being destroyed. Maybe make it so an NPC version replaces the ship for 10 seconds then auto logs out if the person doesn't destroy it they get no bounty etc. Could this send a death thing to the other player for when they return to get a rebuy screen. I would rather see a method where banns are not a thing for this issue as that is far superior for not mixing up real attempts to avoid things and network issues.
Maybe design criteria based on the game for it to behave relatively to those things. If a drive is out you get time to kill an NPC to get kill credit. Or other odd things based on gameplay. If they were running an NPC will replace them and continue to do so. You get a chance for a few seconds to disable it and kill it or something. Just make the NPC have good skill maybe even based on their combat ranks. Then it's hard to kill and doesn't encourage network shenanigans. Make it reflective of how a combat scenario has to work out based on known game mechanics so it removes any possibility of the situation not turning out that way. Obviously that makes more work with future changes, but if done well could be interesting.
Anything done woudl have to perfectly reflect the potentials of combat though. So, it properly simulates a real outcome. That probably isn't as hard as it sounds with this game. There are certain limits to everything. And it doesn't take long to kill or disable.
Maybe if you knock out a module on an NPC replacement after they log you get an extension like in real combat. So, if the log and you kill their drive you can get more time and take them down. Then it reflects actual in game skills. All timing elements reflect the real game time to do things from all direction including weapons mods used. maybe the NPC actually tries to escape... He dodges and weaves based on an AI which may or may not get better with player combat status or other things.
I wonder if they could add detection for things like a drive module being destroyed. Maybe make it so an NPC version replaces the ship for 10 seconds then auto logs out if the person doesn't destroy it they get no bounty etc. Could this send a death thing to the other player for when they return to get a rebuy screen. I would rather see a method where banns are not a thing for this issue as that is far superior for not mixing up real attempts to avoid things and network issues.
Maybe design criteria based on the game for it to behave relatively to those things. If a drive is out you get time to kill an NPC to get kill credit. Or other odd things based on gameplay. If they were running an NPC will replace them and continue to do so. You get a chance for a few seconds to disable it and kill it or something. Just make the NPC have good skill maybe even based on their combat ranks. Then it's hard to kill and doesn't encourage network shenanigans. Make it reflective of how a combat scenario has to work out based on known game mechanics so it removes any possibility of the situation not turning out that way. Obviously that makes more work with future changes, but if done well could be interesting.
Anything done woudl have to perfectly reflect the potentials of combat though. So, it properly simulates a real outcome. That probably isn't as hard as it sounds with this game. There are certain limits to everything. And it doesn't take long to kill or disable.
Maybe if you knock out a module on an NPC replacement after they log you get an extension like in real combat. So, if the log and you kill their drive you can get more time and take them down. Then it reflects actual in game skills. All timing elements reflect the real game time to do things from all direction including weapons mods used. maybe the NPC actually tries to escape... He dodges and weaves based on an AI which may or may not get better with player combat status or other things.
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Returning to the actual topic, I think there needs to be a more graceful way of handling the visuals of menu-logging and clogging. Maybe call it a frameshift drive malfunction; other players in the instance get a 'Frameshift Fragmentation Detected' warning and some particle effects around the ship in question.
If the player is menu-logging, then if they survive the timer than their ship disappears and leaves some kind of wake behind.
If the player was suddenly disconnected, then their ship stays as a static object, but due to potential problems with state information things like its appearance and systems information can be garbled. After the amount of time equivalent to the menu timer, it wakes away.
The same warning could also appear in conditions of degraded network performance - it would provide an in-game explanation of rubber-banding et cetera.
What there doesn't need to be is any significant penalty for someone logging out either way. Not for menu-logging, because people would be tempted to clog instead. Not for clogging, because it is fundamentally impossible to determine, from the d/c alone, whether it was accidental or deliberate. The only realistic way to detect genuine clogging would be by monitoring for a pattern of behaviour (d/cs only during combat, say), and even then it could never be completely reliable. Let people left behind in the instance after someone logs get some rewards, because why not?.
If the player is menu-logging, then if they survive the timer than their ship disappears and leaves some kind of wake behind.
If the player was suddenly disconnected, then their ship stays as a static object, but due to potential problems with state information things like its appearance and systems information can be garbled. After the amount of time equivalent to the menu timer, it wakes away.
The same warning could also appear in conditions of degraded network performance - it would provide an in-game explanation of rubber-banding et cetera.
What there doesn't need to be is any significant penalty for someone logging out either way. Not for menu-logging, because people would be tempted to clog instead. Not for clogging, because it is fundamentally impossible to determine, from the d/c alone, whether it was accidental or deliberate. The only realistic way to detect genuine clogging would be by monitoring for a pattern of behaviour (d/cs only during combat, say), and even then it could never be completely reliable. Let people left behind in the instance after someone logs get some rewards, because why not?.
Because people would then use the same problematic disconnect methods on others to get said reward. Unless it's not enough to worry about. It would have to be balanced to not encourage certain things.
I was thinking specifically of the Powerplay consequences up-thread, if someone was transporting a PP good and someone wanted to destroy them, then the attacker getting 'credit' for the destruction of the cargo seems fair. The courier would still have the cargo, and could still deliver it, ultimately splitting the difference, which seems fair. Although there might be issues with repeatedly 'destroying' the same cargo over and over for that reward, maybe, so it might need more thought.
Other things I guess you'd also need to check on a case-by-case basis for potential exploits. You certainly shouldn't be able to clear someone's notoriety by blowing up a ghost copy of them, as then their legal worries are over without the accompanying rebuy.
I really, really like this. Mainly, because it's an accurate description of me back when my online gaming was all about PvP. I don't know what the trigger was, this was literally decades ago, but at some point I realized all the joy was GONE. I wasn't getting any satisfaction out of winning, all I cared about was making my opponents LOSE. Not only must they lose, but that had to lose hard. Were they angry and ranting about their loss? That was the best. All the rage and crying. The moment I realized that's all I was playing for anymore is the moment I stopped competing.
Ultimately this was an incredibly healthy change in my life. Until that change I had no idea how much of that negative attitude was spilling out into every other aspect of my life.
There's still an allure to it, but I'm pretty sure it's poison to me. So I stay away. Recurring threads like this one tell me I'm not the only one who should be staying away from PvP.
So cherry picking it is then.... a solution that only applies to CERTAIN use cases and not all of them....and where do I support the suggestion of forcing any pixels to be left? You can keep such make up ideas to yourself...