An investigation into Frontier's actions on Combat Logging

[Asp Explorer]

Every player must send in a video to FD showing how they crazy-glued their network cable to the jack so it's impossible to pull out. There, done. Finito. Solved.

Only scrubs pull out cables

Besides - on a multihomed system - which one would you want to see glued first?

 

[WR3ND]

Every player must send in a video to FD showing how they crazy-glued their network cable to the jack so it's impossible to pull out. There, done. Finito. Solved.

My router has an off button, but it and my computer are on the other side of the room from me. Well, not my laptop, but I don't play EDH on that since it's strictly a Debian/KDE (Linux) machine now. Used to play on it a bit back when it had Windows 8.1 on it. But I digress...

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

but nothing has really fundamentally changed since then

Don't be too sure about that Grandpa ... ISDN bonding isn't used anymore

- - - Updated - - -

Is there a way to glue the wifi?

Yes - use tinfoil .. solves everything I am told

 

[Cathalo]

Combat logging is an exploit, Frontier has said this and made it clear. The problem is that they seem so inept that I don't think they have any means of policing this. Nor do I think they really care.

If you combat log then that is on you. You have to live with yourself knowing that you would have died but you chose to cheat the game. If you can live with yourself knowing that you're a cheater, then more power to you. For the rest of us that actually have blood flowing through our veins, its not so easy.

 

[raeat]

Seriously? This thread is still going?

Talk about a non-issue.

 

[Ozram]

Seriously? This thread is still going?

Talk about a non-issue.

Quite possibly the first time I've agreed with anything you've posted.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

If you mean TheMittani, "tried to pressure" is the word. He got drunk at Fanfest and prompted those watching the panel he was on to harass the guy into committing suicide. He paid a fairly heavy price for his stupidity. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/29/the-mittanis-crime-punishment-in-eve-online/ To his credit he made it up to the guy with a formal apology and in-game assets, but it makes you wonder.

Wow! Shame ccp didnt close his account that is despicable . I often say things when drunk i regret but that is beyond that. Sort of sums up how i feel about some online communities

 

[Cathalo]

Seriously? This thread is still going?

Talk about a non-issue.

If it were a non issue then it wouldn't be going this long. I know, there is a certain segment of players out there who don't honestly give two s about what someone else might find fun, just because they're different than you, but to ignore those players is wrong. I don't care which side of the fence you fall on, seems like you fell on your head or live in total apathy. Or, maybe you were just being sarcastic in which case I do apologize.

 

[NeilF]

Seriously? This thread is still going?

Talk about a non-issue.

Indeed!

I'm having trouble deciding what's more cynical?
1) Individuals in the game interdicting and destroying other CMDRs for no in game reason, and because they instead just get enjoyment out of causing aggravation and grief to other CMDRs? - Because the game does little/nothing to counter act this!
2) Trying to force Frontier's hand and force individuals to let them be destroyed for these toxic lolz.

There's so much more important things that this time and effort should be put towards!


Sort out Crime and Punishment! The (illegal) destruction of a Pilots Federation Member should be a serious matter!

Let the game offer interesting PvP (& PvE) orchestrated mechanics - At the moment if you want to do PvP you have little option but to interdict random CMDRs. Why aren't there tasks, missions & CGs to offer engaging and interesting LEGAL PvP (& PvE) mechanics?

 

[Jack Schitt]

they're not my workarounds - just elementary stuff anyone who has ever dealt with real networks will know

I didn't mean "yours" literally. Just that you were the last contributor to mention the possibility.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

I didn't mean "yours" literally. Just that you were the last contributor to mention the possibility.

Just take what Asp says about networking with a pinch of salt .. he still thinks punch-cards are a thing :O

 

[raeat]

Quite possibly the first time I've agreed with anything you've posted.

"And with strange aeons even death may die."

 

[the100thmonkey]

Combat logging is an exploit, Frontier has said this and made it clear. The problem is that they seem so inept that I don't think they have any means of policing this. Nor do I think they really care.

If you combat log then that is on you. You have to live with yourself knowing that you would have died but you chose to cheat the game. If you can live with yourself knowing that you're a cheater, then more power to you. For the rest of us that actually have blood flowing through our veins, its not so easy.

With such empathy, understanding and humanity in those veins, I can only assume you're Jesus H. Christ himself.

 

[NeilF]

Combat logging is an exploit, Frontier has said this and made it clear. The problem is that they seem so inept that I don't think they have any means of policing this. Nor do I think they really care.

If you combat log then that is on you. You have to live with yourself knowing that you would have died but you chose to cheat the game. If you can live with yourself knowing that you're a cheater, then more power to you. For the rest of us that actually have blood flowing through our veins, its not so easy.

I suspect for a large majority of times this happens - when one or more gankers interdict an individual who is not even in a combat ship, much less a PvP engineered one, to be blown up for no in game score, cargo or reward, but instead just these individuals enjoyment obtained from knowing they've probably aggravate and annoyed someone - they can live with it.


Solve the mindless/pointless destruction with no repercussion, and that's a lot of the problem solved right there!

Add in actually interesting PvP (& PvE) legal combat mechanics/scenarios, and there's another huge improvement. Why after two years with enough time for things like CQC are there basically NONE?

Finally, look into penalising combat logging!

 

[DefiledDragon]

I suspect for a large majority of times this happens - when one or more gankers interdict an individual who is not even in a combat ship, much less a PvP engineered one, to be blown up for no in game score, cargo or reward, but instead just these individuals enjoyment obtained from knowing they've probably aggravate and annoyed someone - they can live with it.


Solve the mindless/pointless destruction with no repercussion, and that's a lot of the problem solved right there!

Add in actually interesting PvP (& PvE) legal combat mechanics/scenarios, and there's another huge improvement. Why after two years with enough time for things like CQC are there basically NONE?

Finally, look into penalising combat logging!

I don't believe a "crime and punishment" system, however harsh, is going to be the silver bullet that many people seem to think it is. Eve Online has the harshest "crime and punishment" system of any MMO I've ever played. You attack a non hostile target in secure space and you lose your ship, guaranteed. No if's or but's, your ship is destroyed by the omniscient and indestructible security services. Were you flying a ship worth over a billion isk (credits)? Tough, it's gone. Yet ganking still happens, a lot. People still moan about being ganked, a lot. In fact in the first 2 years I played Eve I lost countless ships to other players. In the two years or so I've been playing ED, I think I've lost one ship to another commander and that was in a CZ.

When the revamped "crime and punishment" system does arrive, prepare for disappointment because no matter how severe the penalties, it's not going to stop people from ganking you, I guarantee it.

 

[NeilF]

I don't believe a "crime and punishment" system, however harsh, is going to be the silver bullet that many people seem to think it is. Eve Online has the harshest "crime and punishment" system of any MMO I've ever played. You attack a non hostile target in secure space and you lose your ship, guaranteed. No if's or but's, your ship is destroyed by the omniscient and indestructible security services. Were you flying a ship worth over a billion isk (credits)? Tough, it's gone. Yet ganking still happens, a lot. People still moan about being ganked, a lot. In fact in the first 2 years I played Eve I lost countless ships to other players. In the two years or so I've been playing ED, I think I've lost one ship to another commander and that was in a CZ.

When the revamped "crime and punishment" system does arrive, prepare for disappointment because no matter how severe the penalties, it's not going to stop people from ganking you, I guarantee it.

Possibly...

Each Pilots Federation ship you illegally destroy incurs an ever increasing/ramping penalty/fine? After several, fines of hundreds of millions? A few more and an X billion fine? It might deter people... Especially when the increased NPC security attention they received in their instance takes them out, and they can't afford their rebuy


In short, if you're illegally destroying a Pilots Federation Member, it should "really hurt"! Especially if you keep doing it!

 

[CaptainSeriousFun]

I don't believe a "crime and punishment" system, however harsh, is going to be the silver bullet that many people seem to think it is. Eve Online has the harshest "crime and punishment" system of any MMO I've ever played. You attack a non hostile target in secure space and you lose your ship, guaranteed. No if's or but's, your ship is destroyed by the omniscient and indestructible security services. Were you flying a ship worth over a billion isk (credits)? Tough, it's gone. Yet ganking still happens, a lot. People still moan about being ganked, a lot. In fact in the first 2 years I played Eve I lost countless ships to other players. In the two years or so I've been playing ED, I think I've lost one ship to another commander and that was in a CZ.

When the revamped "crime and punishment" system does arrive, prepare for disappointment because no matter how severe the penalties, it's not going to stop people from ganking you, I guarantee it.

Hmmm...let's try it and see.

 

[Stigbob]

I don't believe a "crime and punishment" system, however harsh, is going to be the silver bullet that many people seem to think it is. Eve Online has the harshest "crime and punishment" system of any MMO I've ever played. You attack a non hostile target in secure space and you lose your ship, guaranteed. No if's or but's, your ship is destroyed by the omniscient and indestructible security services. Were you flying a ship worth over a billion isk (credits)? Tough, it's gone. Yet ganking still happens, a lot. People still moan about being ganked, a lot. In fact in the first 2 years I played Eve I lost countless ships to other players. In the two years or so I've been playing ED, I think I've lost one ship to another commander and that was in a CZ.

When the revamped "crime and punishment" system does arrive, prepare for disappointment because no matter how severe the penalties, it's not going to stop people from ganking you, I guarantee it.

I agree crime and punishment adjustments will only effect clean(ish) players. Griefing/ganking/cheating and exploiting are all underhand behaviors of a similar nature effectively if you do one of these things you probably do all of them. So any repercussions aren't going to matter as the majority of the proposed solutions involving fines or ship loss won't work as the targets are rolling in easily obtained exploit money and will simply laugh it off.

 

[Sole Hunter]

Not that it's relevant but where I live has broadband on paper (especially the bills) however the service is so shoddy the regulator is installing monitoring devices with a view to action against the provider. The regulator tested my connection but it's actually too unreliable for the monitor to work. A full fiber optic upgrade was supposed to have been finished over a year ago, but aside from a sad little overgrown hole in the ground down by the post box hasn't actually started yet.



This thread and the "investigation" were by SDC, if you make allowances for people in my position SDC and other exploiters will try to take advantage of it whilst claiming they are just bringing bugs to FD's attention.



Devils advocate:

"I've been labelled a cheat and penalized for a substandard internet connection by a company who sold a game with a now cancelled offline mode and have been aware of my connection issues for over a year. People who demanded them were given refunds over the cancellation of offline at the time, how is this drastic bit of goalpost shifting any different."

Who knows how it would pan out, it would be interesting.



No less controversial than combat logging itself which has been around since day 1, along with cheating, griefing and exploiting.

Stay in solo if your internet is garbage. Your fault not ours, if you cant meet the internet requirements then i shouldnt have to suffer from it when i play the game because you decided you dont care.

I will personally report you as many time as possible if you combat log on me. I really could care less about your excuses... for all i know it could be all lies.

On a more serious note, i understand where you are coming from but it's no excuse to justify a conveniant combat log when i interdict you and then blame it on your bad internet.

Nope im sorry that just doesn't fly. You don't get a special treatment because you can't afford a decent line. Everybody must abide by the rules, including me and you.

I'm happy to admit I'm biased against cheaters in multiplayer games. Combat Logging is endemic in the ED community, especially here on the official forums, with CL-recommendations, excuses and justifications from a significant number of CMDRs. All brought about through an apparent lack of strong action on FDev's part. CMDRs have gotten used to doing it for crying out loud.

If someone loses server-connection (for whatever reason, cheating or not) in Open play Combat, I personally think they should be suitably punished in-game when they log back in (rebuy screen being the obvious example) - like other multiplayer games do, especially ones with perma-death (traditional MMOs keep your character "alive" for a few minutes to be killed, but that wouldn't work for ED). If CMDRs don't want to risk it, because of an iffy internet connection for example, then Private Group or Solo are available and perfectly playable.

Regarding ED Reddit's policy on Combat Logging: "encouragement of cheats and/or exploits are not allowed" - the modteam are unanimous in support of this specific rule, as there is no excuse for cheating in a multiplayer game (never mind that ED has two playmodes without gankers anyway).


Hahaha! SDC aren't seen as honourable, how on Earth did you get that impression? The Reddit community sees them as rabble-rousers too, with exchanges between SDC and other CMDRs often being moderated for breaching the rules - all posts and comments are mod'd as consistently as possible. But hey, I suppose you see what you want to see.

We won't be changing our open-to-all policy in the ED Reddit because some CMDRs think we should be prejudiced against or segregate other CMDRs, under the justification of "we don't like what they do". We temp/perma ban CMDRs for repeated infractions where appropriate. As Brett accurately said: "However, /r/EliteDangerous is a bit more liberal in their moderation practices (i think!), where as here it's a little more strict." If you don't like our open access and moderation policy, then that's ok too Our varied modteam are happy with the the Reddit currently: we're the 2nd largest ED community, traffic is nicely steady (tracking with the game's active playerbase as expected), and gaining 100 new subscribers daily - so we must be doing something right :S


The marketing for that game was very successful: the pre-orders alone probably made them $50m. Not bad results for such a shoddy game.


True that - because Adles Armada & SDC chose for the latter to do the investigation with their love for creating drama and being the centre of attention. Both groups organise and co-moderate the EliteCombatLoggers Reddit btw, and have been concerned with an apparent lack of CL-punishment action from FDev for quite some time.

Do I think the OP was over-dramatised and in some places inflammatory? Yes. Am I happy with its outcome for rallying the community into discussing the put-on-the-backburner issues of CL and C&P? Definitely. Do I think there's a nice bonus of publicity out of it? Yes, that too. Will SDC be quiet for a while? Probably not

Can't rep+ you enough.

 

[Anopheles]

If i never hear the words 'combat logging' again it will be too soon.