An investigation into Frontier's actions on Combat Logging

[SystematicChaos]

So a bunch of buddies tried to test combat logging by logging on each other with alts.
Accounts and associated IP addresses were probably the first things to be checked. The OP is short on actual detail and a complete load of circumstantial guff quite frankly.

The only place it seems to stand up is the kangaroo court of these forums.

 

[CitizenLee]

Anyone know what the penalty is for sending in false reports to tech support?

If caught you're forced to spend a week in Mobius

 

[Shar]

So, the first media outlet has the story, I'm not sure if SDC contacted them, someone else did or they picked it up from the forums, still, no matter.

SDC, you better now be damn sure what you are getting into because if it turns out that Frontier have a back catalogue and works undertaken to punish and deal with combat logging in any way you guys are now in for a bumpy ride.

As an aside, the SDC's blatant hypocrisy regarding exploits and combat logging is astounding, either SDC's or Frontier's ice is considerably thinner than it was.

Of course there not sure, they have stuck there neck on the chopping block based on a small flawed test. Also note the OP has not been seen since the opening post I find that curious.

 

[edgar]

Anyone know what the penalty is for sending in false reports to tech support?

False reports? Doesn't sound like FD thinks these are spurious in any way, based on Zac's response to this issue on the Reddit post.

 

[veryinky]

I pirate at CGs. Minimum half of the people I interdict who I msg before interdiction that they are being pirated combat log.

There's your problem.

"pirate" definition has changed for the average ED player, it means PVP optimized ship opening fire at first opportunity and never actually gathering cargo. You're doing this at CGs, I'll be kind and assume you're trying to pirate a trade CG and not ambushing explore CGs. But either way, players have come to associate someone claiming to be a pirate as just running an auto-key script to be smug while they proceed to open fire on the victim. They probably think you're going to destroy them anyways so why bother playing along?

Griefers ruined legitimate piracy. And the root cause of that is a lax crime and punishment system.

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

What is combat logging?

Unfortunately, it is impossible to get Frontier to change policy or quit lying about their actions (with respect to exploiters and the community) without exposing their malfeasance for the players to see. We have tried many times through the appropriate channels to get Frontier to either take action or go public with their endorsement of exploiting, but they have lied and dodged every step of the way in order to placate the playerbase. Sometimes it is necessary for players to take it upon themselves to try and improve a game that is under threat; we were forced to do this with the heat meta, and will do it again as necessary. In this instance, it will be by publicising our findings to relevant media sites until Frontier decides to take action.

So are you people going to be attacking Mobius Group again then? Spoil more people's fun and ruin their game because your not getting enough attention?

 

[Vorxian]

What is combat logging?

Combat logging; is the act of forcefully taking matters into your own hand whilst the Crime and Punishment system is non existent / broken. Arguable to the point that losses in OPEN, directly at the hands of another player intent on your destruction; is pretty much - an insult.

Fixed the definition, for those that are not quite there yet.

 

[Comrade Error]

Well I guess Zac just confirmed Ryan was right. Now I don't buy his about combat loggers being dealt with on a regular basis but if he actually looked at Ryans cases then he just admitted to Ryan being right.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDange..._frontiers_actions_on_combat/dacac6q/#dacac6q

 

[Wasp0]

False reports? Doesn't sound like FD thinks these are spurious in any way, based on Zac's response to this issue on the Reddit post.

Damn can't find it, and chance of linky thing to point me to this reddit article?

Thanks

Damn Comrade has supplied said link, thank you!

 

[Cosmos]

I would imagine the gaming media would have a field day with such a statement from FDev: "The Space Wild West? Elite Dangerous devs condone in-game cheating - will not punish exploiters and combat loggers". It'd be a PR disaster.

In my view this is exactly whats happening. There are countless players in game with funds gained from exploiting and combat logging is so ubiquitous the only rational way to understand it is that Frontier aren't doing anything about it. The chickens appear to be coming home to roost.

If Frontier gets a trashing in the press as a result then perhaps it may finally motivate them to do something to address the blatant cheating thats been going on.

 

[StuartGT]

Well I guess Zac just confirmed Ryan was right. Now I don't buy his about combat loggers being dealt with on a regular basis but if he actually looked at Ryans cases then he just admitted to Ryan being right.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDange..._frontiers_actions_on_combat/dacac6q/#dacac6q

Copy pasta:

Hey /u/Jonticles,

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

First of all, I would like to take a moment to assure you that combat logging is against the rules and it’s something that we actively review and action on a regular basis. We have internal processes which we follow to ensure that the reviews are dealt with in a fair and thorough way. We use a number of data points and telemetry to help guide our decision and every report is treated on a case by case basis. There are a number of factors included in that process but we don’t share details of how we action rule breakers as this would give people an advantage in circumventing those checks, should someone be inclined to do so.

However, after looking into the reports that you’ve highlighted here and taking a moment to review them in more detail I can confirm that on this occasion we didn’t follow the processes that we set out and subsequently these reports were not actioned. While we don’t tend to talk about individual reports (even ones like this) we feel that it’s important to give you an open, honest and transparent answer to your post. I must stress that this is absolutely not typical of our standard review and reporting process and this mistake was completely unintentional.

I would like to apologise for the error and thank you for bringing it to our attention. By doing so you’ve helped us to review and make improvements to our existing process which lets us deliver the best possible support for our community.

I also want to add though that reports are still very important to us. We have hundreds of thousands of Commanders playing and while cheating and rule breaking is very small within the Elite Dangerous community it is still something that we do review and take very seriously. Please do continue to submit reports of rule breaking with as much detail as possible and we will endeavour to review these and take action where needed.

 

[Wasp0]

Just read the reddit post from Zac, pretty much sucking up.

The best way to see if they are acting on loggers from now on is to keep putting these 'Test's' to them and see if any action is being taken.

 

[Shar]

Well I guess Zac just confirmed Ryan was right. Now I don't buy his about combat loggers being dealt with on a regular basis but if he actually looked at Ryans cases then he just admitted to Ryan being right.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDange..._frontiers_actions_on_combat/dacac6q/#dacac6q

No he did not, he states there is an error in the process thats all, Ryan said frontier are lying and delibratly ignoring CL, wrong wrong wrong. stop creating your own reality.

 

[amysteriousstranger]

From what I've gathered on other forums, FDev punishes cheat programs very severely, to the point that running a certain program at the same time as Elite will result in an account ban within the day. The days of invulnerable "PvP"ers sitting at stations with turrets shooting at everything that moves is now long over.

3rd party scripts on the other hand seem to be more tolerated considering auto-key and those insipid "Yar, I be a pirate and here's my life's story" multiparagraph messages that some "pirates" send out while they attack.

Considering they didn't punish anyone who exploited the anarchy no fire zone bug which resulted in thousands of destroyed ships and actively disrupted CGs that FDev themselves was running at the time, I think combat logging is way too low on the list for them to care.

Errr do you have a link to that because of the 2 hackers I've encountered in the last 2 years (1 had over 200 people report him and he bragged about how FD sent him a "stern" email about "don't hack" so he continued and received a 1 week ban to solo and continued to play as normal after that, this player still plays regularly as I saw them around 2 months ago and they were caught hacking over a year ago and when he saw me in game recently he commented on how he still hacks, I can't name and shame here but it was all over Reddit with video evidence from many groups at the time )


So for me I've seen nothing done at all

Besides, would you respond to this thread?

Pointing out is not.

This is.

If I were Frontier, my response would be: go for it. These clowns think they're so important and can bring Frontier as a company to their knees, let them make spectacles of themselves.

Sure PC Gamer might post an article, sure Sole Hunter will yelp with glee when an article on the interweb mentions a little group he's a part of, something which Dr Kaii and Erimus also managed to do without all the dramatics (in effect: if SDC puts all their manpower to work and goes huffing and puffing they're almost as noticeable as two innovative CMDRs, which is actually high praise for SDC), and after a week ... we'll all be lonely tonight, and lonely tomorrow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxbIU0X-lCI

Remember WarZ? No mans sky?

Look what happened to those, WarZ outright lied and Steam ended up taking the game down for a time, because the Devs lied about in game content, allowed hacking in their own Dev team (there was a recording of the Devs team speak where they used hacks to kill another normal player)

No, reputation is everything

It won't happen today, but 10 years down the line people will look at the next game they release and think " oh look it's that company that allowed cheaters to cause havoc"

There are games from other companies that utterly ruined their reputation because of similar things

 

[verminstar]

The Space Wild West.

As much as I agree with yer statement, it does have to be said...there is a certain mindset of player who would see this as an encouragement to start playing. Look how many gta could boast and it really doesnt get any wilder than that. Many players are attracted to this very scenario and this could actually work in FD favour as free publicity.

 

[Shar]

And how about making a statement here Zac this is the official forum after all.

 

[Watcher]

If they say they have investigated but don't haven't done so or have but haven't taken any action that is a bit depressing.

That said they may take action that we can't see, perhaps black listing certain players or forcing them in to instances with only other players with a similar track record. They might also have a policy of only taking action after a certain number of offences or something. They might even see that you are playing with known related accounts and essentially logging against yourself so write off the ticket as time wasting. Being completely snowed under might also be a thing.

Whatever is going on though you would hope for better communication about the processes in place and some transparency about what has been going on.
Let's hear their side though.

 

[Cosmos]

No he did not, he states there is an error in the process thats all, Ryan said frontier are lying and delibratly ignoring CL, wrong wrong wrong. stop creating your own reality.

I wonder if you will believe anything people tell you.

 

[Comrade Error]

No he did not, he states there is an error in the process thats all, Ryan said frontier are lying and delibratly ignoring CL, wrong wrong wrong. stop creating your own reality.

I ment that Ryan was right in that they did do something wrong and his methology was correct.

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

Copy pasta:

Hey /u/Jonticles,

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

First of all, I would like to take a moment to assure you that combat logging is against the rules and it’s something that we actively review and action on a regular basis. We have internal processes which we follow to ensure that the reviews are dealt with in a fair and thorough way. We use a number of data points and telemetry to help guide our decision and every report is treated on a case by case basis. There are a number of factors included in that process but we don’t share details of how we action rule breakers as this would give people an advantage in circumventing those checks, should someone be inclined to do so.

However, after looking into the reports that you’ve highlighted here and taking a moment to review them in more detail I can confirm that on this occasion we didn’t follow the processes that we set out and subsequently these reports were not actioned. While we don’t tend to talk about individual reports (even ones like this) we feel that it’s important to give you an open, honest and transparent answer to your post. I must stress that this is absolutely not typical of our standard review and reporting process and this mistake was completely unintentional.

I would like to apologise for the error and thank you for bringing it to our attention. By doing so you’ve helped us to review and make improvements to our existing process which lets us deliver the best possible support for our community.

I also want to add though that reports are still very important to us. We have hundreds of thousands of Commanders playing and while cheating and rule breaking is very small within the Elite Dangerous community it is still something that we do review and take very seriously. Please do continue to submit reports of rule breaking with as much detail as possible and we will endeavour to review these and take action where needed.

It would be more believable if they didn't allow actual promotion of the thing on their own forum!