An investigation into Frontier's actions on Combat Logging

[wstephenson]

Something has to be done though because at the moment this game is nothing more than a ganker's paradise, as you have next to zero punishment for ganking crime.

I'd hate to live in the ED universe. It's a dystopian hell. It punishes the innocent and rewards the murderous.

Lichtenberg branching? Here's how it stands right now...


Non PvP player who plays in Open...

Play in Open ----> get killed Just Because -----> You have X amount of rebuy, lose your cargo/materials/exploration data (which means you also lost hours/days/months of effort).

Consequences for the killed are far more punishing than for the killer.

Lovely game design you have right there, FDEV.

This game is fracking awful right now.

I had an epiphany a few days ago and came to this conclusion about this game as it stands right now...

<snip>

Which is exactly what I'm doing. Not playing the bloody game.

I've been trying to stay out of this thread, but I have to chime in with you about this, G-H.

In one of the Open livestreams I got blown up by a psycho in a Cutter for no reason, with no interaction, while flying a gaily painted T6. After (against my better judgement) diverting to that system to try to help out one of the devs mining with my spare limpets. And I'm old enough and shrewd enough to have turned to run and start charging my FSD as soon as I saw what was in that asteroid cluster, but I was dead before I could high wake. So fun, much salt.

As well as punishing the victim far more than the perpetrator (is this some kind of wannabe Tory home secretary's portfolio? ), the current simplistic penal system robs the game of gameplay opportunities. If it were not so laughably easy to launder your bounties, and if there were distinct 'lawful'/'criminal'/'unpoliced' systems with active policing of 'the wrong kind of ships' in Suprecruise, then even the gankers would have as much or more fun out of trying to stay alive long enough in a 'lawful' system to find vicitims, as traders do when entering an Anarchy with a hold full of Platinum and Powerplay vouchers.

 

[NeilF]

TBH, the last thing the game needs are the doors to get locked while the house is still on fire.

Sort out Crime and Punishment... THEN sort out Combat Logging. The former may even reduce the latter!

 

[wstephenson]

I've listened in on SDC streams for a long time now. The lot of you absolutely care not a jot for any of the content FDEV put into the game. At the same time, FDEV are being monumentally dumb in giving any of you lot an ear, and falling for your meta-gaming.

Just keep trying to portray yourselves as the self-righteous police of the game. Anyone who isn't a <ahem> can see right through it. You claim to highlight combat logging - yet, by your very actions - indiscriminate player killing - you are actually baiting people into combat logging. You know fine well that by your actions, you are actively baiting players to do that. Of course, the stupid players who do combat log are playing right into your hands - you can then post your videos, make your reports, create a lot of self-righteous noise - and hope that FDEV fall for the meta-gaming tactic. There will be a lot of people who fill fall for this deviousness of course. I'm not one of them.

And JeffRyan was right about how FDEV could be manipulated a couple of years back already, in the Avoiding Group Control thread. Press (Eurogamer) and Community Management at FDEV could do better at seeing this for what it is and marginalising toxic behaviour instead of celebrating it as community led activity whilst looking at a set of rules that were written with a far different set of players in mind.

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

That marketing video depicts the idealised vision of what FDEV intended to happen within the game.

In fact what really happens is this - now, picture the scene...

Indiscriminate Ganking. Every bloody day.


That marketing video depicts some jolly alternate universe in which actual pirates are playing out the role of pirates. I find it amusing that you pick this video out as an example.



No he's not lying.

Elite Dangerous was never sold as a PvP game.

He's operating from the viewpoint of the ideal way the company envisaged people would play the game.

Unfortunately, FDEV failed to take into account that element and subset of the human race that just wants to watch the world burn. This is perhaps the biggest failure FDEV have made.

FDEV have constantly shown to be utterly naive in this respect. They have singularly failed to realise to date that there are players of their game who don't give a frack about most of the stuff Frontier's devs work hard to put into the game. Anyone who has ever spent the time to watch any SDC member's Twitch streams will realise this simple glaring fact, for example - these players do not care about the game. Perhaps privately FDEV realise this - but it still boggles my mind that in the two years since release FDEV have done frack all to implement some sort of karma and/or crime and punishment system which encourages that naive vision they have of the way they think their game should be played, and the crap version of the game we have today.

In fact for those players - their only reason they click on PLAY on the game launcher, is for indiscriminate ganking and murder.

David Braben and co. should spend a few days just looking through SDC members twitch streams. This would be highly educational for them. I repeat - they do not care about the game content - the only content for them and their ilk is the other human beings controlling the virtual space ships they are blowing up.

You know me Genar-Hofoen, we are pretty much on the same wave length with things and I agree with what you say but I do think the game is better because of the nutcases. Like you say though what is spectacularly lacking is the balance to the nutcase and its much needed and ironically even they want it. Rather than spending time balancing gimbals, FD's time would be well served balancing social interactions and players. Only then will things become sensible.

For the record I don't agree with anything that SDC do at all, in or out of the game but the presence of that type of in game character is for me, at least positive. I don't agree with it so I don't do it but I like the fact that out there there is a dangerous element that you need to be mindful of. Otherwise i'm just flying between A and B, I may as well watch windows star field screen saver.

I think they could do things considerably better and I think they need a massive attitude shift, but then I also think that of the "PVE" crowd that rabidly hates them. Until something gives this will never end its circular journey of hell. There's not many people who reside in the middle in ED, its very very divisive and both polar ends are unfortunately as morose as each other.

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

Look I'm happy to have a discussion with mutual respect but I find it hard to when people are advocating the simulated murder of hapless commanders.

Not just that but we keep going round in circles and there are some seriously hypocritical things that your side just don't seem to be able to see!

Anyway, I share your sentiment on love and mutual respect and wish you well for the day ahead outside of Elite. o7

I'd have respect for that lot if they didn't keep trying the meta-gaming outside of the game. I'd have respect for them if they were truly interested in the content of the game. I can understand why they might not be interested in the game's content - because currently I'm not, either.

The thing is - they simply don't care about the game as FDEV/David Braben envisage it should be played. (And to be frank I don't care about much of the game content at the moment either).

Which is why we have threads like this. They have SDC members who are now moderators on the ED subreddit - they're been extremely good at playing the forum meta-game. Mr Maid there simply doesn't like the official forums because he can't get away with the rhetoric and meta-gaming that SDC can successfully get away with on Reddit - it's as simple as that.

 

[Goose4291]

I've often found that highly competitive people can only see conflict (and indeed most things) in terms of "competitiveness". Yes, it's a bit of a generalised statement, but such people seem unwilling or unable to accept that some people simply are not interested in competitiveness - and therefore must be "cowards", or need to "git gud".

That is quite generalised. I'm fairly competitive when it comes to games, and the only time I've ever said anything even close to that is when people have taken part in indirect PvP (i.e. Powerplay, BGS monkey business) using the other modes to avoid contact with their opponents, and have repeatedly banged a drum about how the other side can't do anything about it. I'd like to think most of the open world players who get involved in these discussions have a similar attitude to this.

It's part of the reason I still can't fathom combat logging (even though I put a thread up to ask for loggers to explain why they do it). I mean, if you want to mitigate the risk of facing off against another player down to absolute zero, don't go into open, use solo or a PG with people you trust. Otherwise expect what is potentially coming your way.

No open player would think any less of another mode user, unless it was for exploitative purposes (particularly when they're crowing about it).

 

[Knightshark]

As well as punishing the victim far more than the perpetrator (is this some kind of wannabe Tory home secretary's portfolio? ), the current simplistic penal system robs the game of gameplay opportunities. If it were not so laughably easy to launder your bounties, and if there were distinct 'lawful'/'criminal'/'unpoliced' systems with active policing of 'the wrong kind of ships' in Suprecruise, then even the gankers would have as much or more fun out of trying to stay alive long enough in a 'lawful' system to find vicitims, as traders do when entering an Anarchy with a hold full of Platinum and Powerplay vouchers.

Yes, this is the main underlying issue here, almost everything else are just consequences of the utterly bad crime&punishment system in ED. I would love to play in open, i really want to engage in meaningful PvP (BH, CZ, PP, BGS). But as long as even high sec systems make the impression of post apocalyptic wasteland where everyone is fighting for survival, i will keep ignoring Open, sadly. It really annoys me in this discussion how apologetic FD is towards the PVP crowd whining about CL, while completely ignoring the underlying issues which were there since day one (and are being repeated again and again in these forums)!

 

[Kayweg]

Oddly enuf this player has skins for all his ships... aside from that Frontier are hardly doing it hard if you care to check...
http://ar2016.frontier.co.uk/assets/pdf/frontier-ar-highlights-2016.pdf

Was more speaking in general terms than about a particular player, but fair 'nuff.
Retention is less imprtant than in a subscription based game of course, but it's not entirely neglectable.

 

[Forumate]

TBH, the last thing the game needs are the doors to get locked while the house is still on fire.

Sort out Crime and Punishment... THEN sort out Combat Logging. The former may even reduce the latter!

The only reason why you would combat log in Elite is because you are a sore loser. It's like flipping over the game board when you lose in monopoly.

 

[Comrade Error]

TBH, the last thing the game needs are the doors to get locked while the house is still on fire.

Sort out Crime and Punishment... THEN sort out Combat Logging. The former may even reduce the latter!

Or do it the other way around and it'll also reduce the crime, atleast the striaght out murder.

 

[CMDR Tom D]

Hows this for an Idea to solve the problem

RE:Loggers

Conditions
-Frontier find a way to discern loggers and connection failures

Consequence
-ship stays lifeless in instance
-Pirate/Griefer does what he/she wants
-player relogs with death and rebuy screen (or however pirate left ship)

RE:Griefers

Conditions
-Frontier updates crime and punishment system

Consequence
-Bounty placed on head for nefarious activities (IE wasn't power play, wasn't "fair game")
-Reputation for system superpower and faction takes a hit.
-ability to "mark" player on commander watch list (for revenge or otherwise warning)
-Ability to report player location to authorities and maybe local galnet if wanted
-Authorities much stricter with a "no nonsense" approach to who access their system. scaling with security level.
-More aggressive NPC bounty hunters, scaling with bounty total.

 

[frostypaw]

In fact for those players - their only reason they click on PLAY on the game launcher, is for indiscriminate ganking and murder.

David Braben and co. should spend a few days just looking through SDC members twitch streams. This would be highly educational for them. I repeat - they do not care about the game content - the only content for them and their ilk is the other human beings controlling the virtual space ships they are blowing up.

I'd love to see a venn diagram of those who complain about grind and the gankers/PvP crowd

I think the only reason you need lots of credits is to cover lots of ship losses - I suspect most of the whining is from the same subset. The majority of the game is merely an impediment to getting on with griefing and they hammer those super-profitable routes to fund it.

In PvE, 99.9% of the deaths are cause because you made a mistake. Hit boost and crashed into the station wall. Descended to fast on Achenar 3. Bit off more than you can chew in a CZ or RES. Accepted a pirate lord hunt mission that was way above your head. In PvE the game aims to be balanced and provide different challenges that the player can choose.

In PvP, some random guy and his 3 friends in fully engineered PvP FDLs interdict you, then you die. Where the choose-your-risk phase in PvE happens all the time, at any moment, with your actions, in Open Play the choice of risk happens in the main menu, and that's it. Beyond that, it's like the game would roll dice and if you get a natural 1, you die.
Which would be absolutely fine if there were also a choice of Open PvE as an alternative.

This is the essence of the problem - there's a VAST VAST imbalance inbetween the value of the ship to PvE players and PvP players. As a mostly PvE player and someone who's been away from the game for a few months I know I'll be coming back with a barely engineered ship and a tonne of data to a bubble where there are people who have been spending months grinding their butts off to get top combat builds that could wipe me out in a second.

That's not fun. It forces me to creep back in under Solo, to then spend months and months building my ship up into an engineered beast until it will feel safe to return to Open which I've loved.

This game is meant to be fun though not an enforced grind right? Every poll has shown the overwhelming majority of players are PvE focused but to play in Open they must conform to an increasingly steep PvP requirement. With tens of thousands already gone to Mobius/groups/solo and apparently huge numbers combat logging to escape the PvP just how much feedback is required to say "Less PvP"

Combat was meant to be rare and significant, not constant and totally insignificant but we're regularly told That Is The Way To Play - grind get yourself 20 rebuys so you don't care and the loss of a ship isn't a bother. It's all good and fine saying we can go to the other modes but if so many are doing that then it's fair to guess there's also a significant number who don't know about the big groups and just drift off - it's all lost players, it's all upset players and by every poll it's a LOT of them.

Sure fix the combat logging - but the focus needs to be on what's causing the problem behind the explodey (or not) end results. When for one fraction their ship and credits mean so much and for another it means virtually nothing there will be no sense and no understanding between them

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

They have SDC members who are now moderators on the ED subreddit -.

lol really? if so that just confirms why i do not use reddit.

may as well have a bankl robber in charge of bank security

 

[Javert]

I think we are missing a big part of the point here.

The issue of combat logging is secondary. Everyone knew it was an issue before Tuesday evening, everyone knew it was difficult to solve, and from a technical standpoint I haven't seen any suggestions here that I've never seen before.

What is really at stake here is that SDC have turned themselves into effectively a terrorist and lobbying organisation operating against the game of Elite Dangerous both within the game, and now outside it. They are using well worn political lobbying techniques in an attempt to influence the development agenda and priorities of Frontier, without really caring about the long term future of the game.

The techniques they are using bear more than a passing resemblance to organizations like UKIP in the UK.

I suspect strongly that this whole blow up was caused on purpose without much true objective other than to cause a big argument and get SDCs name in lights - they don't really care about the game or even whether they succeed or fail in getting combat logging solved - they are just here to cause trouble.

So, what we should really be asking ourselves is, are SDC right that Combat Logging and penalising combat loggers should be shifted to the top of FD's agenda for progressing the game? If not, then I sincerely hope that other than issuing the mandatory Customer Service statements to their customers, FD will do precisely nothing to change their priorities on their internal work.

I do think there is a place in this game for anarchist type activity - I partly agree with Brett's posts last night that having some players in the game who randomly attack other players, although people will complain about it, actually is a good thing for the game, and that if you play in open mode you should expect some level of risk. I also tend to agree that if you turn combat logging into a baiting type activity in itself, you are stooping to their level - better just to move into PG or Solo.

However this is not really what SDC are about - what they are about is trying to find exploits and then stage publicity stunts for their own self aggrandisement - even if you make a lot of fixes to crime, punishment, CL etc, SDC will simply look for more exploits in those changes and stage another "event" about it. They have now moved this activity outside the game where they are trying to create a big storm about an issue that was already well known in the past.

Even if you gave them the benefit of the doubt that they are trying to fix a problem, it's very lucky that the problem they are highlighting is one which, if cracked down upon much more heavily, would provide a big benefit to their play style. I await to see the results of SDCs detailed investigation into ticket handling and action taken against players indulging in in game harassment.

So my plea to FD is - ignore this thread and all this fuss and just carry on with the priorities that you had at 5pm on Tuesday night. Nothing said here really makes CL or crime and punishment more of a priority than it was 2 days ago. I would like better solutions to these items, but I would rather the dev priority be decided by FD than by minority lobbying activities.

 

[Oogie Boogie]

Guess what the OP says is that Frontier in this case did not "walk the talk". This is happening in most of companies now and then and to be on the spot of the public eye usually helps to bring up an internal discussion within this company to live.

So kudos towards CMDR ryan_m who discovered a kind of lack at Frontier and started this old/new controversy here in the community. As this thread is growing like crazy, it shows that this is a topic which keeps the all participants truly passionate!

 

[Wolf Starslayer]

The problem I see in this thread is that many in the PvP community only seem to want to fix exploits when it takes away a victim; if it allows them to get rid of bounties and avoid any repercussions/docking problems they seem fine with it.

Your either against exploiting or not can't really have it both ways.

 

[master_xean]

I AM SO BRAVE

I always play the video game and I AM SO BRAVE I DO NOT HIDE



ALL THE REST OF U ARE COWARDS 4 COMBET LOGGING AND FRONTIER NEEDS TO B.A.N. Y.O.U.

 

[JosiahD]

The problem is if you do not destroy him in seconds then he combat log.

Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius

Playing a psycho is also legit way of playing. Everyone have a right to carry a darkness in heart.
If you do not want to fight, then do not fight. Make High wake or go to group/solo.

Do not call someone else gameplay bad because you do not like it. Its mean only you do not like it, not mean his gameplay is wrong. Be more tolerant.

Yes playing a psycho is a legit way to play, no argument from me. Play the role of psycho with the bulk of the consequences falling to the victim to deal with, like rebuy, lost exploration data, failed missions, lost cargo etc etc? That's the problem right there - the psycho typically gets away scot free and the victims pay the price. And people wonder why some resort to combat logging......

 

[xondk]

.

Unfortunately, this presumes a lot of things.

Biggest among those are.
- They 'need' to look at video evidence to know what is going on.
Being a developer I know how much I see behind the scene's that users can be completely unaware off, so yeah, seems unlikely, and last I checked frontier has never asked for video evidence?

- That frontier needs to inform the person they are punishing that they are punishing them.
This entirely and totally removes any and all idea's behind a shadowban, which is what frontier uses, and I have seen clear evidence myself that shadowban's do exist, if or if not they are used, or active against a user, isn't something that should be revealed at all, or they would become completely useless.

Also, while I understand people are upset about combat logging, it is a reaction to actions that have been done by people under the flag of being a PvP'er or similar, clearly some people now react by simply combat logging whenever, because they don't want to risk dealing with said people.
Combat logging is a symptom, not a great one, not a legal one, but it is not the cause of the problem, personally I say that real PvP'ers and pirates should be vastly interested in protecting their way of life, and be the first one's that go to hunt those that simply want to cause other people grief.

Unfortunately there has been many "that's not my problem" responses to such a reply in the past, but looking at this thread, I'd say "Isn't it?" if you want to be able to do the thing you want, piracy and such, then you are going to need victims of one form or another, treat said people poorly and you won't have any victims, they will do whatever it takes to avoid you.

You can easily be a 'bad' guy and still be respectful towards people, treating them...you know, as a person and not just some thing that you need to have fun.
And that doesn't mean you need to speak 'properly' to them or such, you can act scary, be foul mouthed whatever, but you for example do not outright kill them for no reason, maybe instead you beat up their ship as a warning? there are options, just interact with people and see what happens.
This whole thing is creating an unneeded tear in the player base, and creating problems, and here's the thing, it is a problem for everyone, me, you, pvp'ers, pve'ers whatever, especially when it is made into a conflict of 'us' vs 'them'.
So how about we stop that? and actually you know try to solve the problem, which at least as I see it, is the griefers, and not legit pirates and PvP'ers.

 

[Kyokushin]

Yes playing a psycho is a legit way to play, no argument from me. Play the role of psycho with the bulk of the consequences falling to the victim to deal with, like rebuy, lost exploration data, failed missions, lost cargo etc etc? That's the problem right there - the psycho typically gets away scot free and the victims pay the price. And people wonder why some resort to comat logging......

Dura lex sed lex.

Everyone including griefieng team could agree a current crime and punish system is ridiculous and need a rework.

I my opinion this should work similar to this:
High security systems/areas - in these areas security response should be so hard as station response. Griefing and pirating just impossible.
Medium security - griefing and pirating possible but hard and for smart folks.
low security - griefing and pirating possible, but with security response, lucrative routes or missions. Just risky.
anarchy - no security, your flying at your own risk, but very lucrative trade routes or missions, up to 70% more than in high security

As a punish should not only by INEVITABLE ship destruction of a griefer or pirate (by a police/military forces with very small chance to escape), but also things like:
- limited access to the some Engineers (some of them may be against criminal)
- limited access to outfit and shipyard

In a conclusion - there should be a safe areas and routes where players can feel totally safe. Safety should not be regulated as PvP yes/no switch, but by a in-game law and strong and fast response of security forces.

As in the real world, you can't grief on the street of Warsaw or Budapest (because you will be dead in minutes, high security), but you can on Brussel (low security) or Paris (anarchy).