An investigation into Frontier's actions on Combat Logging

[StuartGT]

Trivial to game I'm afraid. I don't want to get into technicalities but putting a player into a Combat state serverside can easily be countered by either player disconnecting the entity that put him in Combat. If it's no longer in the same instance on the next server status tick - what is the player in Combat with?

It'll be exploited by chained failed interdictions by both sides and all sorts of unpleasantness.

You appear to implying that a "hacker" will "game" tracking analytics by targeting the same CMDR with DDOS, repeatedly, to push for FDev action. Considering player locations, matchmaking, etc, I'd like to see your odds on such an occurrence. Such a "hacker" would undoubtably target multiple CMDRs yes? Again: analytics.

As for demanding a reliable, fast interenet connection - sure that's always nice to have - and getting the game to do a basic throughput and latency test would be a nice thing.

I'm glad you agree. A simple notification alongside "Open" on the in-game menu would suffice, as would an in-game "connection test" for the unsure CMDRs.

It's utterly meaningless though. If you want to lag someone out of your instance - there are dozens of ways of doing so.

See above.

 

[Truesilver]

Does it matter? If I happen to conveniently lose my connection every time I'm about to lose my ship then its pretty obvious whats going on.

It is quite remarkable how many player's internet connections appear to be linked in some way to the module health of their drives and/or fsd.

One of life's mysteries.

 

[StuartGT]

"CMDRs in Open play should be informed that a reliable, fast internet connection is required, otherwise they risk punishment if their "connection drops" during combat with another CMDR. There are two other fully playable modes for those that don't or are unsure."

Nah. Many who have a reliable, fast internet connection still have their connection drop with a alarming regularity.

Again: analytics.

Solution: offline mode, as promised. Oh yeah. Another lie.

Hahahahaha! Offline mode isn't Open. It seems odd that I need to point that out.

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It is quite remarkable how many player's internet connections appear to be linked in some way to the module health of their drives and/or fsd.

One of life's mysteries.

Bingo

 

[StiTch]

It is quite remarkable how many player's internet connections appear to be linked in some way to the module health of their drives and/or fsd.

One of life's mysteries.

*chuckles*

 

[Asp Explorer]

Awww Cosmos - have a hug! I just checked especially for you and it's 127.0.0.1

Hacking has absolutely nothing to do with it. There's no need to hack anything - and nobody should be doing any nasty things.

 

[xdeath]

People with a 'poor connection' that negatively affects the game experince of others can be dealt with in the following way:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...t-why-not-FD?p=4327766&viewfull=1#post4327766

If folks have a crappy connection that really is their problem and no one elses.

But that same argument loops back around to you. Why should FDev focus on an issue that only affects a small group of people?

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

… The fact that folks can encourage others to cheat and exploit on these forums is revealing of how lame Frontier are when it comes to those who play the game fairly in respect of its designed mechanics.

Like telling everybody that combat logging has no consequences?

OK, apparently no consequences as the OP did proof nothing beside FD not punishing the test accounts after x (with x being an unknown number) combat logs.
We don't know if FD put the test accounts on a list of combat loggers that get some sort of punishment after Y (with y being an unknown number) of verified combat logs.
We don't know if FD needs video proof or if FD is perfectly capable of dealing with reported cases of combat logging simply from looking at their data.

 

[Knot2clever]

People with a 'poor connection' that negatively affects the game experince of others can be dealt with in the following way:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...t-why-not-FD?p=4327766&viewfull=1#post4327766

If folks have a crappy connection that really is their problem and no one elses.

If that's your attitude, then you can hardly be surprised when others think ''If folks have a problem with players combat logging that really is their problem and no one else's.''

 

[StuartGT]

I'm asking you because you said that nobody was asking for players to be punished for a single instance of combat logging. The "investigators" combat logged once on their alts and expected them to be subject to some kind of sanction. Either they want punishment for "first offence" combat logging, or combat logging isn't a new activity for those alts.

If you read the OP and reports, you would see that they performed multiple logs under those alts during the investigation, and had multiple reports sent in against them. Again: if you read it.

 

[xdeath]

If you read the OP and reports, you would see that they performed multiple logs under those alts during the investigation, and had multiple reports sent in against them. Again: if you read it.

No it doesn't, actually. It says that only three accounts were used. No mention of how many times they logged.

 

[bitstorm]

Solution: offline mode, as promised. Oh yeah. Another lie.

Jesus man, get over it.

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If you read the OP and reports, you would see that they performed multiple logs under those alts during the investigation, and had multiple reports sent in against them. Again: if you read it.

I think you might have misread?

 

[Oguska]

What a time to be here on forums, pretty wild month for FD, eh ?

 

[Asp Explorer]

What a time to be here on forums, pretty wild month for FD, eh ?

It's the only PVP that counts

 

[StuartGT]

But that same argument loops back around to you. Why should FDev focus on an issue that only affects a small group of people?

This is an interesting point. Why should FDev concern themselves with punishing cheaters?

Here are some basic numbers:

• There are at least 1.4m owners of ED (as stated by David Braben in Jan 2016)
• Approximately 50% of ED's ownership is on Steam (see SteamSpy archives from Jan 2016)
• ED currently averages 90k CMDRs playing every fortnight
• ED currently averages 4.4k CMDRs playing every hour
• ED currently averages a peak concurrent playerbase of around 9k
• The playerbase is currently in a stable high period, 5k+ peak concurrent for the past 3 months, the best the (Steam) playerbase has ever been.
• Powerplay has died a death - traffic to the respective PP subreddits (the focal points for strategies, as there were no subforums) have dropped to 10% of their peak activity.

Where have all the rest of those 1.3m players gone? They will all have their reasons for stopping playing of course.

However, would it not be fair to assume that some of those (10%? 20%? Maybe more?) quit playing because there is zero punishment for cheating in Open play?

For arguments' sake, lets say only 5% left because they enjoyed PvP related activities, and hated the cheating that happens: that's 65k regular players gone! And when we've only ~200k playing regularly now.

Man, that sucks.

 

[The Wallet Inspector]

FD would not comment on any activity anyway. They would keep it under wraps just as they don;t allow 'naming & shaming' here on the forums.

At best your 'evidence' is one tiny notch above anecdotal. It suggests a response along the lines of 'Cool story, Brah'.

As to FD lying, that's crazy. FD said they are developing ways to monitor logging, not that they could tell when someone combat logged. You have a skewed perspective and it shows in your post.

Funny, your comment sits there among all the people praising them for their approach. I guess he hit a raw nerve

 

[Asp Explorer]

There's quite a few people with multiple accounts that maybe they only use occasionally, perhaps for testing purposes

 

[StuartGT]

No it doesn't, actually. It says that only three accounts were used. No mention of how many times they logged.

I think you might have misread?

Nope: "After several iterations of reports to Frontier"

You do realise you're both clutching at straws, yes?

 

[The Wallet Inspector]

Good luck with blackmailing FD. They're sure gonna like it.

This has nothing to do with "blackmail". Blackmail is actually illegal. PM me when someone calls the police lol

 

[Cosmos]

What a time to be here on forums, pretty wild month for FD, eh ?

The management of the game has a lot to be desired.

 

[Gunnet]

Nope: "After several iterations of reports to Frontier"

You do realise you're both clutching at straws, yes?

That phrase appears outside the section describing the use of alts. Not to mention that all it explicitly says is multiple deceptive reports were made. Or at least claimed to be made.

Here is the description of how alts were used:

1. Three of our own alt accounts were used to taskkill combat log on our members, who recorded footage of said logs and reported them to Frontier support with tickets.
2. Once support had acknowledged that they were looking into the case, the owners of the alt accounts monitored their emails to see if Frontier had punished them in any way.