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

[DR Grandreefer]

That's where the disagreement lays. I don't see the technical aspect of the connection between the two actions giving the clogger any kind of excuse. I indulge in a spot of murdering improperly prepared CMDR's coming in and out of an Engineer's facility, and that behavior is something karma and c&p is supposed to remedy, but only in an ingame sense: jasonbarron fought the law and the law won kind of thing. If some of those CMDR's in their under prepared ships decide to escape my rampage by task killing then that is an unacceptable cheating behavior that only out of game sanctions will have any hope of remedying. The only connection is one of in game play, which does not excuse the cheater from cheating.

The technical relationship between griefer and clogger (that being ungracefully exiting) is the only one that matters in this discussion. Fdev doesn't need to look at why someone cheated, just that they did.

Wow. I have now explained myself multiple times and even had others explain my point multiple times but if you hear that I am condoning cheating or been saying that grieving should allow combat logging then you twisted my words into you own illogical conversation. I can see why so many on here feel threatened by my comments or feelings on how FDev is moving forward. The idea of having a friendly conversation seems really lost on most people. Like for some reason you think I’m attacking your personal character. I guess I had just as many upvotes on these posts as I got people crying foul. Just here to better the game. I’m not stupid enough to think only my thoughts and play styles matter. The game is too damn big to focus on any one of these things to try and include everyone into just what YOU want to do in Elite. If at any point we are risking our daily active users just so such a small minority can get their kills in open on other CMDRs. I get it, its cheating accross the board for all type of combat logging but the only one that effects other players is the one done against other players. Never did I once say that there wasn’t any other way. Just the only way that truly effects you.

 

[Anon Sin]

I've just watched the video by the gaming news channel Pretty Good Gaming on YouTube about this matter and seen Frontiers response to them... really Frontier,you're bleating on about how it's not helping you when players are investigating you over this matter,really?? Never mind your persistent lying to your gamer base over this issue and the proven fact that you are actually doing nothing about 'Combat Logging'.
I admire and respect the general Frontier staff but the people running this company have totally lost any respect,do we really mean that little to you that you think it's ok to lie to us? Well now the wide gaming community knows about this and it's not good,at all,for you and us. Please show us the respect we actually deserve by being truthful with us,for 4 years you have said you are punishing and sorting out the 'Combat Loggers' and for 4 years you have been lying... it's make me wonder what else there is!
This is disgraceful and you should be ashamed,at this point you're no better than EA,Activision or Warner Brothers! I would normally end something i've written on this forum with the Universal Elite Salute but not this time,not for this,you don't deserve it!

 

[Asp Explorer]

As a now intrigued networking troubleshooter/implementation engineer, please do elaborate. I'd love to hear something genuinely interesting today.

Put very basically, FD's servers do not "host" any player instances. They exist purely as account authenticators, data loggers, multicast broadcasters and client matchmakers. Each player connects to the universe via a system of "islands". Each island is created in playerspace when a client logs on, the matchmaker determines if there is an existing island in that area, and if criteria are met (location, Mode setting, latency and bitrate) then the newer players will join an existing island to form an "instance". This is where players see each other in playerspace.

It's entirely possible to be in the exact same location, at the exact same time, but be in a different island and thus be instanced with other players. Islands are not permanent - their "network health" is measured and if a player with better "network health" (i.e better literate, fewer lost packets, and lower latency, and more central to more players) then their island will take over. This has the effect of allowing more clients into the same instance, for more people to see each other.

Similarly - if one client has atrocious network health, at some point they can get dumped out into an island of their own, to avoid negatively impacting other players.

The servers keep track of the movements here, and will attempt to place players that were previously instanced back together. The servers do not hold the "clients" themselves, so if a client disconnects - there is nothing for the server to attempt to replicate that disconnected client as placeholder until the actual client reconnects.

Also, traffic between clients, servers, and other clients follows a few different protocols. Missions and cleartext arrive via HTTP. Important events happen via TCP. General gameplay and pew-pew is shoveled around using UDP. The servers know nothing about clients until an "important event" happens - cargo dump, destruction, dock, stellar body scan, etc - and these are logged against the account. It's why you can hyperspace to a new system, scan the main body, PC reboots randomly and you give up for the night, and when you log back in next day - that body is still unscanned.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

I just had to google that:
http://www.ratbehavior.org/vomit.htm

Awesome factoid

This is the real reason this thread exists. Now we know there's a website dedicated to the behaviour of rats.

Bookmarked, and duly repped.

 

[StiTch]

Put very basically, FD's servers do not "host" any player instances. They exist purely as account authenticators, data loggers, multicast broadcasters and client matchmakers...

Aye, this and the basics of P2P as described below I am aware of. However it's good reference material and I didn't think you'd rise to that, so +1.

I understand the BGS servers cannot do it at present. I am asking if they could do it with the right wizardry. Moving sessions from client to server isn't precisely unheard of.

The "important events" you speak of happen quite frequently; if you don't retain a valid connection to the BGS, your session will drop quite quickly. You mention yourself here that they attempt to retain the instancing, if not the actual session - network health and need to expand server powah aside, is there any reason the BGS cannot temporarily retain the actual session until reconnected, and terminate it with a "CMDR killed" status if the ship is destroyed in that time?

It'd still be vastly, vastly less intense than servers fully hosting all sessions.

Rats cannot vomit. Possibly as an adaptation to eating manky things.

Interesting indeed! Thankyou for that little nugget*

*not to invoke a likeness to the whole vomit topic of course...

 

[Morbad]

I understand the BGS servers cannot do it at present. I am asking if they could do it with the right wizardry. Moving sessions from client to server isn't precisely unheard of.

RelayViaServer="1" used to be a line in AppConfig.xml for a while and I believe it still works if manually enabled.

It doesn't host instances on the servers by any means, but it did seem to allow clients and hosts to not need to directly connect to each other.

I'm not a networking expert, but I would not be surprised if a relay could take over for a client/host with the right work. The cost/benefit ratio of that work being worthwhile is something I am more skeptical of.

 

[Han Zulu]

RelayViaServer="1" used to be a line in AppConfig.xml for a while and I believe it still works if manually enabled.

It doesn't host instances on the servers by any means, but it did seem to allow clients and hosts to not need to directly connect to each other.

I'm not a networking expert, but I would not be surprised if a relay could take over for a client/host with the right work. The cost/benefit ratio of that work being worthwhile is something I am more skeptical of.

It wouldn't surprise me either, however, I suspect the problem here is that when you have a combat log, it's too late already to do it. If someone just pulls the ethernet cable, there's no connection to move the data from the client to the server to take over. The only way it would work is if the server already has a copy of all pertinent information, updated continuously, which in turn would slow down the connection overall just in anticipation of an eventual clog.

 

[Asp Explorer]

RelayViaServer="1" used to be a line in AppConfig.xml for a while and I believe it still works if manually enabled.

I haven't messed with that much, and what little I did capture I didn't pay all that much attention to - but from what I recall that was simply a client forwarding proxy, there still would be nothing the server could run locally to emulate a disconnected client.

 

[PeLucheuh]

If at any point we are risking our daily active users just so such a small minority can get their kills in open on other CMDRs. I get it Ian cheating accross the board for all type of combat logging but the only one that effects other players is the one done against other players. Never did I once say that there wasn’t any other way. Just the only way that truly effects you.

You are being corrected because this last part is totally wrong.

As said before, Combat logging exploit is not exclusive to Open and PvP. It is the same wether you do it against a player or a NPC.

Although this is flagged primarily as a multiplayer concern, the issues (and solutions) apply equally to the single player game.

First things first: we do consider this an undesirable exploit. It’s not “part of the game”.

Have you ever heard about BGS ? Here is an example of abusing this exploit

What's more frustrating? Not seeing an explosion in Open or not being able to keep up with the amount of exploited influence numbers/merits/CG goal completion that a cheating player can generate in the BGS/PP/CGs. I'd say both suck but one obviously impacts a larger portion of the game than the other.

Here is a more concrete example about combat logging issue in solo impacting everyone through BGS : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-Kills-For-Dollar-Bills?p=6278638#post6278638

There is a small minority of people who try to justify cheating as a response to an intended game design minimizing the impact of said cheat.

 

[Red Anders]

None of which has any bearing whatsoever on five clogs over a five month period, which is utterly trivial.

Cheating five times is not trivial, regardless of the period of time over which it occurs.

I've deleted the word 'fake' from your quote by the way because despite your attempts to frame this as 'fake' since the beginning of the thread, these were incidents in which a player exited via task kill whilst in combat. There isn't any further definition of combat logging provided by FDev; in particular there is no distinction made between a player 'just doing it' or 'just doing it with the intention of investigating the investigative process'.

I know you have issues with the player group concerned here but you're really not helping your credibility by constantly suggesting the reports made by that group should be treated differently, which would be the only reason for these reports not to have been processed in the usual way.

 

[Han Zulu]

As said before, Combat logging exploit is not exclusive to Open and PvP. It is the same wether you do it against a player or a NPC.

I'm curious, how would they go about preventing and/or detecting cloggin' in Solo against an NPC?

 

[Morbad]

I'm curious, how would they go about preventing and/or detecting cloggin' in Solo against an NPC?

The exact same way you'd do so in Open, minus the need for subjective reports.

Collect telemetry, identify patterns in disconnections, and if those patterns strong suggest deliberate disconnections to preserve assets that should be lost, inflict punishment.

 

[Han Zulu]

The exact same way you'd do so in Open, minus the need for subjective reports.

Collect telemetry, identify patters in disconnections, and if those patterns strong suggest deliberate disconnections to preserve assets that should be lost, inflict punishment.

How do you identify disconnections? Is there a "heart beat" ping function in the game that constantly checks for active executable?

 

[PeLucheuh]

I'm curious, how would they go about preventing and/or detecting cloggin' in Solo against an NPC?

Remember all modes are "online"

FDev can apparently figure it out using “internal methods

 

[Han Zulu]

Remember all modes are "online"

FDev can apparently figure it out using “internal methods

Ok.

 

[Asp Explorer]

How do you identify disconnections? Is there a "heart beat" ping function in the game that constantly checks for active executable?

Watchdog performs this, and a few other things. As always though, as it runs client-side, it can never be absolutely trusted.

 

[Vlad Archer]

Yes. With their glacial development speed, they will implement some super tech to track combat logs in solo. I'm pretty sure.

 

[Han Zulu]

Watchdog performs this, and a few other things. As always though, as it runs client-side, it can never be absolutely trusted.

Ah.

But that'll only work until someone hacks it.

 

[DR Grandreefer]

You are being corrected because this last part is totally wrong.

As said before, Combat logging exploit is not exclusive to Open and PvP. It is the same wether you do it against a player or a NPC.


Have you ever heard about BGS ? Here is an example of abusing this exploit


Here is a more concrete example about combat logging issue in solo impacting everyone through BGS : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-Kills-For-Dollar-Bills?p=6278638#post6278638

There is a small minority of people who try to justify cheating as a response to an intended game design minimizing the impact of said cheat.

I don't get it. You quoted me saying something, said I was wrong and then immediately repeated the same idea i was trying to convey right after wards. DO you feel like your correcting me because I feel like we are on the same page? Im never once said that cloggin isnt an exploit/cheat. People will always play the game their own way but not a single game has this many people whining on both sides of the fence. FDev is trying to come up with ways to fix this and just because you want to take the ability away to play the game because "I want what I want and I want it now". Yes this has been an issue for some time. Yes its is all cheating so now if I have somebody come back to me and said Im condoning cheating or combat logging again you must now understand that you are not reading my words right. Im done explaining things over and over so you can try to implicate me as one of these people trying to destroy the game. I have $14 billion in assets and I dont combat log. I have no need to. I dont tell others to combat log. But most of you that saw my comments saw them as contradictory to you own beliefs and just wanted to argue. I even spent the time to see your point but didnt receive any of that respect back. I mean if you cant see the whole picture as to why these things arent fixed yet then Im happy you are not the one running this game. We would have even less players playing the game and even more cry babies getting exactly what they want and less of what FDev wants. Go tell Leonardo da Vinci that his Mona Lisa was done wrong. I wonder what type of response you would get?

 

[Stigbob]

Cheating five times is not trivial, regardless of the period of time over which it occurs

Five occurrences at one month intervals is beyond trivial, if that's the true extent of clogging then FDEV should ignore it.

​

I've deleted the word 'fake' from your quote by the way because despite your attempts to frame this as 'fake' since the beginning of the thread, these were incidents in which a player exited via task kill whilst in combat. There isn't any further definition of combat logging provided by FDev; in particular there is no distinction made between a player 'just doing it' or 'just doing it with the intention of investigating the investigative process'

On the matter of the word fake I use it because these were not clogs witnessed and recorded by players, they were prearranged clogs organized between co-operating players specifically to submit a false report of combat logging. They are about as far from being real as they could possibly be.

​

I know you have issues with the player group concerned here but you're really not helping your credibility by constantly suggesting the reports made by that group should be treated differently, which would be the only reason for these reports not to have been processed in the usual way.

Nope they have an issue with me, hence KOS listing me and saying they were coming to get me in the game because I once started a thread they didn't like. I find them hilarious. A bit of feedback at this point, they need to seriously up their game they haven't even come close.

On the subject of credibility dressing five clogs over five months up as a big deal is where it falls flat, add deliberately submitting false reports and it's non-existent.