A Simple Solution to Combat Logging

[Misty_Dark]

Or at least a proper PvP/PvE flagging system so that a CMDR who wishes to engage other players knows immediately whether or not they're "fair game".

Perhaps segregated universes isn't on the menu... but a proper flagging system (with a timer to prevent abuse) which prevents players from engaging or being engaged unless they're flagged is still completely doable given the current framework. Hell, they wouldn't even have to create a different game mode for it. Sure, those who want the ability to engage anyone they wish wouldn't like it... but I'm sure they like players they can't see or engage indirectly affecting the universe even less.

How should that flagging work? When we have dealt with obvious thing, no pew-pew on other player... what about interdictions? should that be a blocked too? what about collisions? should these be removed to?

Because to truly add something like this to the game, you have to account for all the forms of interactions players can do to each other....
If we do not account for collisions between players, as that have been used to kill other players using collisions only. Especially around stations, first you could ram players to death, so bigger ships rammed small ships, so to avoid this, we got speed limit and if you are speediing and a player runs suicide collision their sidewinder into your ship, the stations simply considers this... you was speeding, collision happened, other player dead ------> you are obviously guilty of killing other player, stations opens fire to destroy your ship.

Another situation, you are in conflict zone, etc and are pushing and both your shields and hull are low, and out of "nowhere" another players makes a sneak ramming attack on you and destroys your ship....


So we can remove collisions damage, and that is going to produce some really strange results.... so I run my ship into your ship and either of two things should happen, no damage, but physics enginge is working, so I bounce of you, knowing the physics engine, with a tremendous velocity.. or I can push you around, while we take no damage, but you where pirate hunting in a REZ site, so while I pushed you around, you missed your target and now shoot a "clean" ship and got wanted....


So we remove collisions between players, so now I fly right through your ship... over and over....what will that what you can see out of your cockpit if I simple fly so that your are inside my ship? that will obviously not work that well and people can be pretty annoyed if players keep doing this to them them enter/exits a station.... so we have to make the the "other" ship transparent... so it will not block the view of the first ship.... and now several players can simply enter/exit a station at the same time with out taking turns as we used todo....so now players starts to boost in and out through other players and of course, they will randomly ram a NPC ship and complain about how that is unfair... etc, etc...And not to mention how all of this makes no sense....



Basically, Any PvP flag system, PvE Open , etc, will not really work unless we makes massive changes to the game and the player to player interaction.... and this is why modes are a good solution, as instead of trying shoehorn no player interactions into the same mold where we can do PvP, they simply let players choose a mode, do I even want to play with others? go solo, do I only want to play with friends, use Private Group, otherwise you have the Open mode to choose from...without to having do strange things like the above...




What most PvE really dislikes with the current system is that they have pay for the lulz of other players, with their time, rebuys, lost NPC crew, lost cargo, failed mission etc, just so that a few player can have their way of fun.... so one of the other solutions to this could be to reduce the effect of death to another player has...

So if I kill you with a full load of void opals, you just lost 500 million+rebuy, what if you got an option to get your ship restored to the previous system with all your cargo intact, now you have only lost some time.... you lost some time, compared to the hours of mining you have done, etc, the time lost is minimal... and now it is you who can laugh at me, for my daring attack on your ship etc, you lost basically nothing, so once you are back in the game, you can now use the option to block me, mode switch etc, and be on your way...so what reason would I have to blew your ship up now? if you are not going to be upset and sending me "nasty" messages about what a lowlife I am etc, the entire incentive for me to kill players just because they are players, looses it meaning... and as a side effect, this would remove ALOT of the stigma PvE centric players have about PvP, so they do not panic exit to menu (a perfect valid strategy btw) when another player interdicts them, they might even stick around and fight... since they have nothing to loose but time...

This could potentially lead to more players engage in PvP activities... of course this is a very simplistic explanation of a solution like, as there are quite a few "issues", to be considered and solved before it gets implemented.... otherwise it could be abused... there are no simple solutions to complex problems....

 

[Stinja]

Or FDev makes an Open PvE with just no pewpew, see how it goes, and if ramming isn't a problem: job done.
Why worry about every edge case, and do nothing because you can't fix every edge case before a launch.

I'm sure certain people would try to ram, but it'd be far more obvious they're now against the rules of the mode, especially after repeat incidents.
Then once the added difficulty of kills and first wave of bans hit, they'd get bored and stick to the new Open-PvP.

Also FDev could soft-launch an Open PvE - label it as a beta, even to the point of backup CMDRs and wiping at the end of the trial - which gives them an out if it doesn't work out as planned.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Or FDev makes an Open PvE with just no pewpew, see how it goes, and if ramming isn't a problem: job done.
Why worry about every edge case, and do nothing because you can't fix every edge case before a launch.

I'm sure certain people would try to ram, but it'd be far more obvious they're now against the rules of the mode, especially after repeat incidents.
Then once the added difficulty of kills and first wave of bans hit, they'd get bored and stick to the new Open-PvP.

Because we already KNOW that people are doing the ramming today.... and what rule would they have broken to justify the ban?

 

[Total_dogus]

How should that flagging work? When we have dealt with obvious thing, no pew-pew on other player... what about interdictions? should that be a blocked too? what about collisions? should these be removed to?

Because to truly add something like this to the game, you have to account for all the forms of interactions players can do to each other....
If we do not account for collisions between players, as that have been used to kill other players using collisions only. Especially around stations, first you could ram players to death, so bigger ships rammed small ships, so to avoid this, we got speed limit and if you are speediing and a player runs suicide collision their sidewinder into your ship, the stations simply considers this... you was speeding, collision happened, other player dead ------> you are obviously guilty of killing other player, stations opens fire to destroy your ship.

Another situation, you are in conflict zone, etc and are pushing and both your shields and hull are low, and out of "nowhere" another players makes a sneak ramming attack on you and destroys your ship....


So we can remove collisions damage, and that is going to produce some really strange results.... so I run my ship into your ship and either of two things should happen, no damage, but physics enginge is working, so I bounce of you, knowing the physics engine, with a tremendous velocity.. or I can push you around, while we take no damage, but you where pirate hunting in a REZ site, so while I pushed you around, you missed your target and now shoot a "clean" ship and got wanted....


So we remove collisions between players, so now I fly right through your ship... over and over....what will that what you can see out of your cockpit if I simple fly so that your are inside my ship? that will obviously not work that well and people can be pretty annoyed if players keep doing this to them them enter/exits a station.... so we have to make the the "other" ship transparent... so it will not block the view of the first ship.... and now several players can simply enter/exit a station at the same time with out taking turns as we used todo....so now players starts to boost in and out through other players and of course, they will randomly ram a NPC ship and complain about how that is unfair... etc, etc...And not to mention how all of this makes no sense....



Basically, Any PvP flag system, PvE Open , etc, will not really work unless we makes massive changes to the game and the player to player interaction.... and this is why modes are a good solution, as instead of trying shoehorn no player interactions into the same mold where we can do PvP, they simply let players choose a mode, do I even want to play with others? go solo, do I only want to play with friends, use Private Group, otherwise you have the Open mode to choose from...without to having do strange things like the above...




What most PvE really dislikes with the current system is that they have pay for the lulz of other players, with their time, rebuys, lost NPC crew, lost cargo, failed mission etc, just so that a few player can have their way of fun.... so one of the other solutions to this could be to reduce the effect of death to another player has...

So if I kill you with a full load of void opals, you just lost 500 million+rebuy, what if you got an option to get your ship restored to the previous system with all your cargo intact, now you have only lost some time.... you lost some time, compared to the hours of mining you have done, etc, the time lost is minimal... and now it is you who can laugh at me, for my daring attack on your ship etc, you lost basically nothing, so once you are back in the game, you can now use the option to block me, mode switch etc, and be on your way...so what reason would I have to blew your ship up now? if you are not going to be upset and sending me "nasty" messages about what a lowlife I am etc, the entire incentive for me to kill players just because they are players, looses it meaning... and as a side effect, this would remove ALOT of the stigma PvE centric players have about PvP, so they do not panic exit to menu (a perfect valid strategy btw) when another player interdicts them, they might even stick around and fight... since they have nothing to loose but time...

This could potentially lead to more players engage in PvP activities... of course this is a very simplistic explanation of a solution like, as there are quite a few "issues", to be considered and solved before it gets implemented.... otherwise it could be abused... there are no simple solutions to complex problems....

This is a common reaction to a PvP flag suggestion around here. There’s a combination of disbelief and bewilderment. “What is this crazy left-field idea?”. Well, it’s actually very common in mmo games. It shouldn’t strike anyone with even rudimentary mmo experience as necessarily unthinkable.

Look, the reason people c-log is because rebuy costs are so high. As long as it costs millions to replace a ship, it will continue. Then you add the resource grind someone has put into engineering - FDev have basically created an environment where if the choice between annoying another player and potentially losing months of work, I would be surprised if even the biggest c-log critic wouldn’t do it. I know “don’t fly without rebuy” but not everyone has time to grind credits. Most people just want to play a video game.

 

[Mimix]

Look, the reason people c-log is because rebuy costs are so high.

 

[Total_dogus]

View attachment 158552

Oh look, a gif. You’re super clever.

 

[Mimix]

Oh look, a gif. You’re super clever.

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I wasn't sure if you were trolling or you actually think that 95% insurance coverage is expensive.

Look, the reason people c-log is because rebuy costs are so high. As long as it costs millions to replace a ship, it will continue.

No, you've got to be trolling. You're the first person I have met on these forums that wants insurance to be made cheaper and not nerfed. What are you basing that statement on? Even if you've got a ship worth a billion credits all you have to have is 50 million to have you covered (and that's not even counting that 10 million loan you can get if you lack the funds). That's 15 minutes of painite mining. How do you earn credits?

 

[Frenotx]

So what about PC, Xbox and Playstation? Timezones? What do you intend to do about those?

Should PP only be allowed to on ONE platform? I mean the other two are just hidden away from you....
Should PP only be allowed to be played between for example 16:00 and 22:00 time UTC time, so that everyone doing PP are doing it at the same time, so that nobody is doing their bits at a time when you do not play....

You can organize allies in other timezones, and on other platforms. The same can't be said about solo. Potential opposition doesn't need to be accessable by you specifically.

 

[Rubbernuke]

So what about PC, Xbox and Playstation? Timezones? What do you intend to do about those?

Should PP only be allowed to on ONE platform? I mean the other two are just hidden away from you....
Should PP only be allowed to be played between for example 16:00 and 22:00 time UTC time, so that everyone doing PP are doing it at the same time, so that nobody is doing their bits at a time when you do not play....

Powers normally play to the time allowed and in response to events- i.e. if there is a prep race they counter it in real time as much as possible- such as Wednesday evenings and Thursday mornings.

 

[Total_dogus]

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I wasn't sure if you were trolling or you actually think that 95% insurance coverage is expensive.

No, you've got to be trolling. You're the first person I have met on these forums that wants insurance to be made cheaper and not nerfed. What are you basing that statement on? Even if you've got a ship worth a billion credits all you have to have is 50 million to have you covered (and that's not even counting that 10 million loan you can get if you lack the funds). That's 15 minutes of painite mining. How do you earn credits?

Did I say I want it to be made cheaper?
I think you’re just trying to inflame another toxic argument.

 

[lenna]

Doesn't PC have something like this?

Not always, and even then it would cover ALL cases where alleged "combat logging" is not deliberate.

Guarantee any simple solution to anything in Elite dangerous breaks the game

To a degree, true - any solution will have consequences (some perhaps unintended), but at the end of the day whether it "breaks" the game is subjective.

That's the problem with finding parallels for ED. Not only are there no real-world examples that work without a few caveats, as far as I know there's nothing like it in the world of multiplayer gaming either*.

There have been other cases of peer-to-peer multiplayer games - most though involve some form of server or at least master peer. The issues with deliberate "combat logging" or inconvenient disconnects (regardless of the cause) is not unique to ED. Any given client could in theory replace a disconnected remote entity with a locally emulated one, the only real issue with this principle is it would have consequences for co-operative gameplay where for-example a wingman gets replaced.

Such a substitution could potentially be done in ED (in theory) at the client end (not necessarily an easy thing to implement but it is feasible) BUT it would naturally mean the disconnected remote entity would not necessarily suffer the same fate as a locally emulated one. In the case of a player being the remote agent, their account would not suffer a penalty from the death but the player would at least still retain the opportunity for seeing their pixel explosion.

While this may sound appealing to some, IMO the issue with disconnections needs to remain as something policed by FD through their support channels and any software changes in this area should be purely to help them identify the root cause where possible so they can appropriately police reported incidents.

 

[Mimix]

Did I say I want it to be made cheaper?
I think you’re just trying to inflame another toxic argument.

Look, the reason people c-log is because rebuy costs are so high. As long as it costs millions to replace a ship, it will continue.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Not always, and even then it would cover ALL cases where alleged "combat logging" is not deliberate.

To a degree, true - any solution will have consequences (some perhaps unintended), but at the end of the day whether it "breaks" the game is subjective.

There have been other cases of peer-to-peer multiplayer games - most though involve some form of server or at least master peer. The issues with deliberate "combat logging" or inconvenient disconnects (regardless of the cause) is not unique to ED. Any given client could in theory replace a disconnected remote entity with a locally emulated one, the only real issue with this principle is it would have consequences for co-operative gameplay where for-example a wingman gets replaced.

Such a substitution could potentially be done in ED (in theory) at the client end (not necessarily an easy thing to implement but it is feasible) BUT it would naturally mean the disconnected remote entity would not necessarily suffer the same fate as a locally emulated one. In the case of a player being the remote agent, their account would not suffer a penalty from the death but the player would at least still retain the opportunity for seeing their pixel explosion.

While this may sound appealing to some, IMO the issue with disconnections needs to remain as something policed by FD through their support channels and any software changes in this area should be purely to help them identify the root cause where possible so they can appropriately police reported incidents.

I was exaggerating because not to makes it less fun and won't get the point across

 

[Stinja]

Because we already KNOW that people are doing the ramming today.... and what rule would they have broken to justify the ban?

In a theoretical Open PvE mode: killing another cmdr.

I'm sure the defense would be "oh I didn't mean to / I boosted accidently / they were on the wrong side of the toast rack" etc. But the second time it happens? the third? FDev get to go "ok soft ban for you, until you git gud at flying". If it's a proper PvE player, they get a time out (and remember they don't want PvP in an Open PvE Mode), but an actual griefer gets booted out.
Given enough repeat offenses and the bans get longer.

Of course a "proper PvPer", who wants to fight combat equipped cmdrs, shouldn't have a problem with any of this either.

I thought this wasn't rocket science to think through.

EDIT: sorry @Filthymick420 I've made edits after your like, in case you want to remove it

 

[Total_dogus]

So let’s look at my statements - I said the reason combat logging happens is because of rebuy costs. Does that mean I want to reduce rebuy costs? I’m simply pointing out an obvious fact. I also don’t care about combat logging, so there is absolutely no line between this statement and wanting to reduce rebuy costs.
Often the reason these silly threads go on for so long is basic and obvious comments need to be reiterated and explained to people who either wittingly or otherwise entirely miss the point. In future, if you’re confident you know what someone meant can you read the post again and perhaps a third time to ensure you genuinely do understand what is being said? It would save us all a lot of unnecessary time and effort.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Or we can just close and lock these types of threads as soon as they're posted, mods...

 

[Mimix]

So let’s look at my statements - I said the reason combat logging happens is because of rebuy costs. Does that mean I want to reduce rebuy costs? I’m simply pointing out an obvious fact. I also don’t care about combat logging, so there is absolutely no line between this statement and wanting to reduce rebuy costs.
Often the reason these silly threads go on for so long is basic and obvious comments need to be reiterated and explained to people who either wittingly or otherwise entirely miss the point. In future, if you’re confident you know what someone meant can you read the post again and perhaps a third time to ensure you genuinely do understand what is being said? It would save us all a lot of unnecessary time and effort.

Jesus, calm down it's only a forum discussion. You said that "the reason people c-log is because rebuy costs are so high". But they aren't though. The majority of posts on these forums demand the insurance to be nerfed, saying that 95% coverage is too much. I then concluded that you came up with this statement because they are "so high" in your own opinion. You didn't directly say that you want them reduced, but you seem to be blaming rebuy costs for combat logging. C'mon, lets discuss this like adults.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Pride is why people combat log. They wanna be able to say they play in open. They just dont want the risks involved.

 

[Ethaidan]

So let’s look at my statements - I said the reason combat logging happens is because of rebuy costs. Does that mean I want to reduce rebuy costs? I’m simply pointing out an obvious fact. I also don’t care about combat logging, so there is absolutely no line between this statement and wanting to reduce rebuy costs.
Often the reason these silly threads go on for so long is basic and obvious comments need to be reiterated and explained to people who either wittingly or otherwise entirely miss the point. In future, if you’re confident you know what someone meant can you read the post again and perhaps a third time to ensure you genuinely do understand what is being said? It would save us all a lot of unnecessary time and effort.

The real problem with your sweeping blanket statement is that it is completely unsubstantiated, nor could it ever be substantiated unless you have a proper survey of cloggers that nobody else has seen. Examples...

Explorers. I doubt any explorers really give a toss about rebuys - exploration pays massively (1.5 billion my last trip) and most exploration ships have reasonably low rebuys. The prospect of losing exploration data, however...

PP/BGS addicts. Again, credits have become pretty insignificant lately. I'd wager someone would be more motivated by losing all the PP bonds or BGS missions than the rebuy which can be earned in minutes. Literally minutes - my Python mission runner has a 13.5Mcr rebuy, which is maximum two short delivery missions to earn.

Miners. Do you really think the 10-25Mcr rebuy means anything to a player who can bring in 150-300Mcr per run? Or maybe is it more related to the time spent and cargo they're carrying?

Emotionally weak Gankers. Not your average PvPer, rather those who like to attack easy targets, but refuse to let someone get the better of them. Do they care about the rebuy, or are they just soft in the head?

Noobs. Maybe, maybe some noob might clog if they are low on funds. But it's probably more likely that they will panic clog, or die so fast they don't get a chance.

So go on, expand on which players or types of players clog because of the rebuy, and how you know this to be true.

 

[myothershipisacobraiv]

So what about PC, Xbox and Playstation? Timezones? What do you intend to do about those?

Should PP only be allowed to on ONE platform? I mean the other two are just hidden away from you....
Should PP only be allowed to be played between for example 16:00 and 22:00 time UTC time, so that everyone doing PP are doing it at the same time, so that nobody is doing their bits at a time when you do not play....

Do Xbox and PS4 not have online? What do timezones have to do with anything? Don't PP ticks already happen in UTC anyway? It happens at the same time whether you're in Japan or America. So I don't see timezones as being relevant. I don't see consoles as being any kind of counter point to OOPP.

Right now you've got one mode that's easily broken for everybody, console, timezone or no.