PvP An Investigation Into Frontier's Actions on Combat Logging, Part 2

[Rinzler o7o7o7]

Oh do shut up, you sanctimonious kangaroo-pleasurer! I'm sure-as-hell not taking the blame for Sky having a bad day or two!

None of this matters, anyway - logging is merely the 'lazy man's high-wake' in Elite:Consequence-less! Unless of course, you are ganking unsuspecting victims with a wing using Grom missiles? Hmmm?

Ah, now I see Rinzler's agenda!

& this makes him, his group & those like them, worse than the loggers for the good of the game, in the long run - hence, I'd appreciate it if they didn't use the expedient, spurious crap about concern for the future of ED as a reason for wanting action on CL-ing. If SDC et al weren't constantly being 'outted' as griefing tossers...I might give their arguments more credence.

What a strawman.

I was originally a member of the Code before combat logging killed it, and since then all I've done is arranged PvP as an SDC member and training sessions for newer players. I even made comprehensive video guide to help players escape ganks in open play. And if you look on my youtube channel, you'll see countless videos of me going after gankers at CG's and other populated areas (and a lot of them combat log to avoid their rebuy, which kills my dream of being a PvP bounty hunter).

You can state all you like that I'm "bad for the game in the long run", but I'd guarantee that the number of players I've helped in this game is a lot higher than the number of players you've ever interacted with.

 

[Marra Morgan]

Well this is a sad read

It always surprises me the amount of players who not only tolerate cheating in the game, but actively defend it and those who do so.

And then I look at the names of those doing that, and my surprise quickly dissolves.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Can't wait for white knights to defend cheating again.

I am not about to defend combat loggers.. however given how lightly people got off with the 5:1 cheat, which lets be blunt here, was then used to go after players to watch them explode by members of OPs very own group, then i would say he should be pretty damn thankful that FD are painfully lax on cheaters &/or exploiters.

so sure I truly do hope FD tighten up on clogging, but only at the same time as they tighten up with ALL cheaters.....

cherry picking on 1 "crime" which just happens to affect 1 persons style of play whilst ignoring the rest ESP when members of the complainants very own group were caught doing them and got away with it is hugely hypocritical imo...

TLDR I agree FD are far to lax on ALL cheaters and exploiters, however i suspect if FD treated all cheaters/exploiters how most online partially competitive games do it that OP would be unhappy.

Note i am not accusing OP specifically of cheating I have no idea if he does / did or not, but we do know he plays with them (no naming and shaming of course)

 

[Lucifera Danzig]

Only because you don't agree with this it don't mean it's not cheating right?

I don't see where you came up with your conclusion. FDev has stated specifically where they think a thing is cheating or not. Combat logging is cheating. And nowhere at any time since the inclusion of multicrew did they say using multiple accounts is cheating. And the engineering exploit argument is long dead, because they cleared out all of those ill-gotten mods (and any mods of the same blueprint that weren't ill-gotten on the accounts where ill-gotten ones were found). What you or I may think is irrelevant; combat logging is cheating as per FDev, and it's their rules.

 

[Stigbob]

If a person spends on average 10% of time in combat, and every disconnects happens in combat, you dont need to be a statistician to see something is up.

Disconnections don't happen randomly, they happen when lots of data is being exchanged but doesn't get through. Menu's in stations entering and leaving supercruise and new ships spawning/entering the instance are the biggest triggers. You never get them in supercruise itself, you get them at your destination when you try to drop out or on interdiction.

Combat is one of the biggest triggers, you score a kill there's a short pause then disconnect.

 

[Rinzler o7o7o7]

Thing is though, if you deliberately set out to be bad guys in the game (which you* did), and go out of your way to do increasingly ish things (which you* did), then you shouldn't expect much sympathy if you suddenly start complaining about other people being ish to you.

You may well be right in your claims, but very few people are going to care.

C'est la vie.




*SDC, not you personally, necessarily.

Yes, we are bad guys in the game. Regardless, nobody should tolerate cheating, regardless of what role they play in the game. If people cannot see past the fact that I have destroyed a few players' ships in open play to see the huge issue I've just outlined regarding widespread, unpunished, game-breaking cheating, then that is just sad.

I and all the other SDC guys go to a lot of effort in and out of the game to help people improve at whatever they're doing, whether it's PvP, trading, exploring, or whatnot. The fact that taskkilling is an option just completely nullifies all of our efforts.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

I think what we can take from this post is that cheating is ok because SDC don't like it and SDC used an exploit once that of the many many that have existed FDEV actually did something about it and now everyone but SDC has the moral highground *breathes*
…

I don't know, but I would assume that somebody who has never cheated has the moral high ground over someone who cheated and used cheats to demonstrate that cheating doesn't get punished.

In the end it's just a game and people shouldn't get that agitated about vanishing space pixels - or something like that I read on this forum quite often.

(back to farming sweet, sweet salt miner salt - sorry, I stopped taking all this serious long time ago)

 

[Cowboy Bats]

I can exit my every game whenever I want to and no one is whining about this on forums.

Exactly. I play several games, and it's not a problem anywhere else. I exit games if I get so much as a phone call, and surely I was in someone's sights a few times in BF1, but does Dice care? Are there posts on the BF forums about the guys who're quitting the game when they're losing? Nope, desert of nothing there. Hearthsone? Crickets. IMHO, Frontier should concede the point and if someone quits during combat give the other guy credit for a kill, that and nothing more.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Yes, we are bad guys in the game. Regardless, nobody should tolerate cheating, regardless of what role they play in the game. If people cannot see past the fact that I have destroyed a few players' ships in open play to see the huge issue I've just outlined regarding widespread, unpunished, game-breaking cheating, then that is just sad.

I and all the other SDC guys go to a lot of effort in and out of the game to help people improve at whatever they're doing, whether it's PvP, trading, exploring, or whatnot. The fact that taskkilling is an option just completely nullifies all of our efforts.

so you are claiming none of you ever did the 5:1? come on mate, pull the other one it has bells on.

and "i reported it but nothing happend therefore its fair game" is lame too.,..... or, well looking at it another way, you just justified clogging because, you reported players, nothing happened therefore by YOUR OWN LOGIC clogging is fine then.

roleplaying being a bad guy in a game is cool and ads to the flavour (imo) - those who hate it well that is what solo or PG - when berks dont invade them of course is for) but abusing flawed in game mechanics to get peoples out of game backs up / in such a way as they cant fight back is as bad as clogging imo.

like i said, cheating is bad......and you have proven what we already knew after the 5:1 debable, FD are far to soft on cheaters.. so as i said we agree....

but my issue is, you seem to only want 1 set of cheaters punished, and not all of them.

 

[DukeIronHand]

Exactly. I play several games, and it's not a problem anywhere else. I exit games if I get so much as a phone call, and surely I was in someone's sights a few times in BF1, but does Dice care? Are there posts on the BF forums about the guys who're quitting the game when they're losing? Nope, desert of nothing there. Hearthsone? Crickets. IMHO, Frontier should concede the point and if someone quits during combat give the other guy credit for a kill, that and nothing more.

But...but the salt. Think of the poor gankers here. If they can't blow up hapless newbies and trade ships then what's the point of playing? Where's their fun.

 

[Rinzler o7o7o7]

Thank you for the time you invested compiling this information. I didn't care last year and I don't care now. But thanks anyway.

I respect your honesty.

So OP did you actually connect to this test account from an IP address not used for any other account because it would be pretty trivial for fdev to match the ip's you log in from to multiple accounts and therefore dismiss spurious reporting?

The player who purchased the "guinea pig account" only ever used a VPN when logging into and playing on it. Even so, the player in question did not have anything to do with the last operation.

 

[Powderpanic]

I am not about to defend combat loggers.. however given how lightly people got off with the 5:1 cheat, which lets be blunt here, was then used to go after players to watch them explode by members of OPs very own group, then i would say he should be pretty damn thankful that FD are painfully lax on cheaters &/or exploiters.

so sure I truly do hope FD tighten up on clogging, but only at the same time as they tighten up with ALL cheaters.....

cherry picking on 1 "crime" which just happens to affect 1 persons style of play whilst ignoring the rest ESP when members of the complainants very own group were caught doing them and got away with it is hugely hypocritical imo...

TLDR I agree FD are far to lax on ALL cheaters and exploiters, however i suspect if FD treated all cheaters/exploiters how most online partially competitive games do it that OP would be unhappy.

Mike do you HONESTLY and i mean HONESTLY believe that the few % increase in stats, had ANY difference in the outcome of these innocent player ganks?

I mean come on?

The Rolls were to allow the high level wing fights to be some what skill based again, under the guise that if everyone had the top rolls then everyone was equal.

AND because to get that level of equalness the normal way was boring as hell and far to much PVE for a PVP players taste.. Also entirely skill less, another thing which many high level PVP players have an issue with.

Exploding Asps, traders and PVE lords is a walk in the park with bad rolls.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Cheating only has a consequence if it effects who wins.

An interesting attitude, but not one shared by any sports authority around the world. If you take performance-enhancing drugs for your 400m entry and come last anyway, you'll still get banned if you get caught. If your team is 10-0 down in football with two minutes to go and you pick up the ball and run towards the opposing goal with it, you'll still get sent off even though you won't change who wins.

There is no winning in ED, there isn't a leader board at the end of each round, because there are no rounds.

You might want to check your left panel again, under the "Galactic Powers" button.

Or your right panel, on the local factions tab.

Looks like some round-based leader boards to me...

 

[lokvette]

and the people who want to legitimately play a "pirate" - and the game itself as they can CL against NPC's too - a player may never need to worry about a rebuy ever again.

EVER.

Quite the bonus for players with expensive ships.

Got a problem with Thargoids? CL.

Elite: Combat Log if anything Dangerous comes along. Might as well remove Thargoids, NPC's & Open / groups.

Everyone can stop worryong about engineering thier sheilds, just run with basic sheilds or non at all and keep the task window running in the background - first sign of trouble, CL & relog back in.

Hey if somone wants to play that way who am I to judge. I do however concide the point about people wanting to play the pirate, but I thought that line of game play was all dead and had died some time back.

I also understand the whole thing to do with CL, but unless its a fair fight as in yeah lets rumble and then somone pulls the plug to me thats being a cheat, pulling the plug on some ahat who is out for kicks in thier mega ship of death to me thats the CL putting up a finger to the ahat, cheating yeah FD say it is, do I care if they do it no.

Same goes for somone pulling th plug in solo, dosnt bother me hell tbh I have done it once in a full loaded python it wasnt the amount of cash I would off lost but more the time I had spent doing what I was doing, and no its not a comman thing for me to do as I tend to know what I can do and what I cant do in terms off will I get out of this or not.

Said it before so might as well say it again, somone useing a cheat aka wall hack, aim bot etc is a cheat and shold be banned from what ever game they are caught cheating in, but to me somone task killing in the context of ED so they might get away with the rebuy is stilll a cheat but one that dosnt really bother me as by the looks of this and the reddit thread it dosnt seem to bother FD that much or if it does they have been very slow to do anything about it hence why we keep getting mega threads about it 3 or is it now 4 year old problem.

 

[Powderpanic]

I don't know, but I would assume that somebody who has never cheated has the moral high ground over someone who cheated and used cheats to demonstrate that cheating doesn't get punished.

In the end it's just a game and people shouldn't get that agitated about vanishing space pixels - or something like that I read on this forum quite often.

(back to farming sweet, sweet salt miner salt - sorry, I stopped taking all this serious long time ago)

I agree but you find me a single seasoned player of Elite that has never used a single mode roll to stack missions and there you have your real player minority.

Todays allowed working as intended exploit is tomorrows cheat if enough people cry or quietly patched out.

Cough Skimmer Killing Cough

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Yes, we are bad guys in the game. Regardless, nobody should tolerate cheating, regardless of what role they play in the game. If people cannot see past the fact that I have destroyed a few players' ships in open play to see the huge issue I've just outlined regarding widespread, unpunished, game-breaking cheating, then that is just sad.

I and all the other SDC guys go to a lot of effort in and out of the game to help people improve at whatever they're doing, whether it's PvP, trading, exploring, or whatnot. The fact that taskkilling is an option just completely nullifies all of our efforts.

First off, I'm in no way condoning combat logging. It's against the spirit of the game, much less the rules. Just want to get that cleared up first.

However, you're up against two separate problems here. The first is that, frankly, no-one trusts you. Even if you're now wearing a white hat, people are going to be looking for your presumed ulterior motive. That one's on you, frankly.
Second, while combat logging is indeed a problem, it's a problem that's mostly only affecting a small subset of the player base - the PvP'ers. Given that Frontier have limited resources they can either work on problems that affect the bulk of the player base or they can work on problems that affect a vastly smaller number of players. And in that situation "the needs of the many" is going to win.

It certainly needs addressing, but I wouldn't hold your breath. Frontier ultimately have bigger fish to fry.

 

[Pyrotiger]

I respect your honesty.




The player who purchased the "guinea pig account" only ever used a VPN when logging into and playing on it. Even so, the player in question did not have anything to do with the last operation.

I'm interested to hear about these "guinea pig accounts". I wonder what becomes of some of them (not necessarily the one in question) - I mean, accounts change hands on certain websites for upwards of $1000 dollars on occasions. With engineers unlocked etc. It's funny how the issue is never discussed.

Just a thought for the day

 

[Bortas]

Exactly. I play several games, and it's not a problem anywhere else.

Don't know about BF, but while most online games I've played indeed allowed you to exit the game, whenever you like in some form, exiting during combat was a death sentence, because the game server kept the "avatar" (be it a ship, character or whatever) in the instance. In these games, clogging is not an issue, because anyone doing it is instantly punished for it.

But back to Elite Dangerous... if there's really a real life "emergency" that can't wait for the 15 seconds it takes to high wake, then my ship's rebuy is probably my smallest problem.

 

[DustyArne]

If i would work for Frontier i would have given everybody who'd had a fishy disconnection the last 6 months a 1 month ban form the open server..

See how that turns out.. pretty sure ALL of you would get a ban.

Not to mention all the XboxOne and PS4 players with issues with XboxLive or PSN.

 

[ITZC0ATL]

Well, fair play to SDC for going through all this trouble, as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't affect a large portion of the playerbase now, but that's because Elite PvP has some issues that are holding it back, combat logging included among them. Looks like SDC would be more motivated than anyone to do a thorough test and get it sorted out (I do zero PvP so it doesn't personally affect me).

As for FDev, I have to agree that the response is just ... poor. A canned response, as they say, with no real information. 5 reported combat logs on one account is an inescapably clear pattern, and not so much as a warning letter. As OP has stated, that kind of answer won't do any more if they've previously lied about enforcing combat logging.

FDev, just own up. Your processes either do not work or are not being implemented. Something needs to change and trust won back.