An investigation into Frontier's actions on Combat Logging
- Thread starter ryan_m
- Start date
I play open.
In all honestly for me, the only place any of this stuff matters is on the forum.
Wow... How many pages now. About something that seems to be impossible to even prove or disprove in general? The only impact it has on other players is that another player may not take a loss or be sent to the rebuy screen!!!
Will we ever stop feeding the trolls? [squeeeee]
Nope, this will go on. Here.
Slick move, FD - turning this thread into Hotel California. Elegant.
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Do you understand how P2P architecture works and how it differs from a game that is run by a central server? If FD could do this they would have already implemented it. They can't do this with P2P connections because once your client is terminated then your CMDR's ship no longer exists in the game. In fact it's not just your CMDR that disappears instantly, any NPCs that your client was required to generate will no longer exist, any USSs that spawned based on your CMDR and everything else tied directly to your CMDR in the game are all immediately gone. Your client is required to generate and run those features in the game. FD's servers only record your CMDR's ship information as of the last synchronization between their server and your game client (which will often be off by several seconds or even minutes with an ungraceful exit from the game) and the FD servers quite simply aren't capable generating and running your ship in the game without your client game process being active.
The game can't even handle making wings work properly when it tries to put 2-3 players who have previously grouped up into the same instance. What makes you think they are going to be able to implement a SOS "spawn point" that will reliably allow other ships to enter your CMDR's personal instance from elsewhere in the system?
The issue here is that you clearly don't understand how the game is profoundly limited both by the P2P architecture and the instancing that places each CMDR in their own "bubble" even when playing in Open. These issues are technical problems that FD can't simply "fix" without redesigning the game completely which would cost far too much time and money for them to even considering addressing. You need to realize that FD created Elite using the cheap method of P2P connections instead of a large, powerful central server that would run all of these game features server-side. That is why we have problems with NPCs not being persistent, problems with mode-switching to circumvent mission spawn rates and it is also why combat logging is not reliably detectable by FD and will therefore remain completely unenforceable.
So NPCs will 100% stop shooting instantly instead of after 15 seconds? Then you will get complains on the other side.
I don't. I just have to block it. I could do that with a whitelist (block all but Frontier).
But hacking aside: let's just say you and I end up with a route issue between each other. We both get to kills the other ship. How does that end up?
With both of you progressing in your own game instance without a worry. You get the benefits of your kill, the other player gets the benefit of their kill, and that's it. Why would anything else need to be affected?
X-Terminator
Banned
Aw man OP, why all the bad karma on FD just because they do not answer to you nor anyone. Fact is dude - grown ups lie because! This is just a forum and it is not FDEVs. I hate to beat on those that feed us but man this sure is stirring crap. So what? The game can not legally kick buyers nor discriminate against the many exploits. Who cares? You got bleeding Private Mode to do what you want with who you like. I personally hate this free to do as you please in OPEN but hey I don't blame FD for not having any interest in reading every dig at them. So things are simply not possible to be managed and to not make mistakes against innocent players is the priorty - i.e. accidentally Shadow Banning players for genuine reasons. They gave us the right to be free - the right to combat log and report those that you believe to be bad dude. Seriously though, how bleeding bad is pulling a cord on your own PC? OMG!
Is all you done dude is investigate and then read all 2388 posts in your own thread. Get a life please
Is all you done dude is investigate and then read all 2388 posts in your own thread. Get a life please
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Aw man OP, why all the bad karma on FD just because they do not answer to you nor anyone. Fact is dude - grown ups lie because! This is just a forum and it is not FDEVs. I hate to beat on those that feed us but man this sure is stirring crap. So what? The game can not legally kick buyers nor discriminate against the many exploits. Who cares? You got bleeding Private Mode to do what you want with who you like. I personally hate this free to do as you please in OPEN but hey I don't blame FD for not having any interest in reading every dig at them. So things are simply not possible to be managed and to not make mistakes against innocent players is the priorty - i.e. accidentally Shadow Banning players for genuine reasons. They gave us the right to be free - the right to combat log and report those that you believe to be bad dude. Seriously though, how bleeding bad is pulling a cord on your own PC? OMG!
Is all you done dude is investigate and then read all 2388 posts in your own thread. Get a life please
Well said and agree with you 100% the game would be impossible to be all things to all people. Just here to have fun and nice escape
Whether they choose or not to choose to act on a case by case basis is down to them, as I stated earlier if anyone has a problem with them failing to act in a specific case... e.g. CMDR A.Nonymous has repeatidly combat logged on CMDR A.Nother then the case should probably be escalated with the FD support team (discussing such matters in Open forum is extremely unlikely to achieve the ends you desire). If we are just talking about multiple different CMDR's combat logging on a specific CMDR (or group of CMDRs) then there is no foul on their part. Each case is a separate incident and needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis. As stated numerous times in this thread, network instability is not unusual in some areas and it could well be that in at least some cases it is not deliberate combat logging.
This debate in a lot of ways seems to smack of a bunch of potential Griefers/Gankers QQing about their targets disappearing. This may or may not be the case, but those with unstable network connections should not be punished for the deliberate behaviours of what is probably only a select few.
IMO you also have zero understanding of the term fairness... also acting against your personal interests is a world apart from acting against you personally.
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Neither of you has a Rebuy. That's important to some people. In fact it's the most important thing to some people. There's a "gank" video on YouTube where someone with an 11 million credit balance is sent to a 5 million credit rebuy screen and one of the comments is "7 million to go". I guess the ultimate PVP victory is when you uninstall the game.*
Even if FD could introduce an "NPC replaces player" mechanic, the moment it became clear that victims weren't seeing the Rebuy screen the screams would be deafening. Survival or even victory isn't enough for some players unless the other guy suffers.
[SUP]*these aren't the exact figures, and in fact the person making the comment has misinterpreted the
numbers anyway. But the principle remains, and I'm not linking to the video for obvious reasons.[/SUP]
numbers anyway. But the principle remains, and I'm not linking to the video for obvious reasons.[/SUP]
Hmm so if ED does nothing then those suffer that want others to sufffer. That sounds to be a very good solution to me.
I know what you mean of course but true PvP Player do not have that need. Thats why so less have an issue with combat Loggers at all because it is only relevant for a certain type of Player that are in the minority.
Hmm so if ED does nothing then those suffer that want others to sufffer. That sounds to be a very good solution to me.
I know what you mean of course but true PvP Player do not have that need. Thats why so less have an issue with combat Loggers at all because it is only relevant for a certain type of Player that are in the minority.
Like the anti griefer groups?
Well, too darn bad!
Bottom line is whether the other player has a rebuy or not, it has no impact upon you, your game, and the gains made by doing combat.
The biggest issue with combat logging, as I see it, has nothing to do with whether the targeted player suffers a consequence.
The problem is that the target that took time to find, select, interdict, get near, engage, and so on, can just disappear out of thin air and thereby invalidate & waste all that time and effort.
Fix that problem, and there's no rational reason to complain.
It's been mentioned a few times, and I've lost track if I've said it in this thread, but the fix seems straightforward to me: rather than the game making the ship just "wink out" if the other player flying it disconnects, it should leave the ship in your instance, with all the variables intact (physical orientation, velocity vectors, hull hitpoints, shield MJs, internals, loadout, etc. etc. - *everything*, got it?), and have the NPC AI 'take over' the job of piloting the ship. Presumably you could change the kind of NPC AI based on the combat rank of the pilot that disconnected.
Ensure that there's *always* a target and outcome, even if a disconnection occurs, and the matter is settled; there's no need to mess with anything past that point.
edit: You could also look at this as "ship persistence", just slightly different from having the ship coasting uncontrolled, without inflicting a rebuy on the disconnected player. (Give the benefit of the doubt, plus there's already measures FD takes against people who abuse the system on purpose - anything else is sheer vindictiveness.)
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I'm pretty sure the anti-griefer groups have a problem with griefing, the clues in the name.
This is probably the only truly fair approach, the target would naturally lose the CMDR tag in the process and the attacking player still has the opportunity to report it as combat logging.
However, it is open to exploitation by bounty hunters who team up with players who escalate their bounty then deliberately combat log. Alternatively, it could be exploited by pirate groups who have traders carrying valuable cargo deliberately combat log so they can gain cargo. It would be tantamount to introducing a duplicate reward exploit and for this reason should probably not be done.
Long and the short of it is, people in general need to stop worrying about what FD does or does not do in support of their EULA and just get on and play the game. If you truly want to avoid combat logging then don't prey on other CMDRs... simple.
FD could potentially try updating their match making service to ensure players who logout and back in again within a certain time frame rejoin the same instance there by allowing the players another chance to engage each other. Alternatively, it could try to ensure the relevant CMDRs never spawn again in the same instance. Either approach though would probably require extensive work and potentially introduce other issues.
Had an email from a friend/another ED player yesterday... He flew all the way to Maia to do the thrusters in his exploration Asp, with enough stuff got five spins of the wheel of fortune... Got there and realised he didn't have the thrusters he wanted fitted, so went to a few high tech systems, and came up empty. So in the end flew back to Shinrata to fit them. He'd now been playing for an hour and got technically no where...
You can imagine then when appearing in Shinrata and he was interdicted and attacked, with this player of course not having the slightest interest in any in game mechanic, reward, score or outcome, why my friend then "pulled the plug"... And do I blame him with the current state of the game? Nope...
In truth Shinrata seems now to demonstration perfectly the vapid, toxic, cynical activity taking place all too often in the game, and the complete lack of the game to police itself.
We've had a bucket of time thrown at the Engineers, and yet still more is incoming, and yet here we are two years into a game that has not moved a single step in truth in creating a meaningful Crime and Punishment system, and even more importantly actually offering interesting, orchestrated, PvP gameplay, so those interested in it can easily find it. It's seems bizarre then two year in, and basically the only avenue currently available for PvP is to randomly interdict other CMDRs, most of whom are not currently interested or outfitted for it.
In truth I hope it continues to get worse... Because something needs to be done as regards Crime and Punishment and PvP gameplay as a whole.
You can imagine then when appearing in Shinrata and he was interdicted and attacked, with this player of course not having the slightest interest in any in game mechanic, reward, score or outcome, why my friend then "pulled the plug"... And do I blame him with the current state of the game? Nope...
In truth Shinrata seems now to demonstration perfectly the vapid, toxic, cynical activity taking place all too often in the game, and the complete lack of the game to police itself.
We've had a bucket of time thrown at the Engineers, and yet still more is incoming, and yet here we are two years into a game that has not moved a single step in truth in creating a meaningful Crime and Punishment system, and even more importantly actually offering interesting, orchestrated, PvP gameplay, so those interested in it can easily find it. It's seems bizarre then two year in, and basically the only avenue currently available for PvP is to randomly interdict other CMDRs, most of whom are not currently interested or outfitted for it.
In truth I hope it continues to get worse... Because something needs to be done as regards Crime and Punishment and PvP gameplay as a whole.
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No more so than it already is (or isn't). The only difference is the guy getting blown up not having to pay a rebuy, which isn't really important.
This, also, is already a current problem - especially where Powerplay is concerned; the only difference here is whether player B is voluntarily ejecting goods or is letting an NPC do it against its will. The exploit itself doesn't change, and any potential solutions to it in the future (surely Fdev will think of something!) would likely equally be unaffected (that is, the solutions would still work).
This would never work, unless you forced the other player to be in some kind of "target has disconnected, please hold" limbo while the instance is 'frozen' in regards to ship orientation/velocity/etc.
Basically, no way bro.
That is not how I envisaged it...
As I see it... If player A logged out they and logged back in then if player B was still in normal space then player A would spawn beyond notional maximum detection range but with-in maximum instance range (so notionally 15-30km). If player B, happened to be in supper cruise then player A would enter the same super cruise instance as player B as soon as they enter super cruise. They could be instance locked for say 1hr in either case (c/f wings).
Personally, I preferred the latter of the two match making server options since it would prevent those likely to combat log spawning with those that are not likely to there by avoiding the issue entirely (kind of like an auto-shadow ban if you like).
Other options could include, a relogin timeout if after combat logging they rejoin Open. This could increase with the frequency of combat logs. Starting off at 1 minute and doubling for every combat log in an hour and halving every two hours. This approach would penalise persistent combat loggers who insist on playing in Open but allow them still to play the game in other modes without the penalty. Such an approach may not stop Combat Logging but it would perhaps give them pause and would not replace the current reporting status of Combat Logging. Effectively penalising them in a way that is appropriate without being too punitive to other players. Those with unstable network connections would probably need to steer clear of Open when their network is on a bad day but at least they would still be able to play co-operatively/competitively in player Groups without related issues/concerns.
As for the current approach, it does not allow for duplication of items as I understand it so replacing a departing player with an equivalent NPC would involve true duplication and introduce a definite exploit potential that would dwarf any current potential exploit that I am aware of.
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The design intent as I understand it was that PvP gameplay was intended to be "rare and meaningful", what that means is that if you are after Elite: PvP Space Wars (i.e. regular PvP opportunities) then you are looking at Elite: Dangerous the wrong way.
While certain blockading incidents have been happening in Open (shinrata, maia, hutton orbital, and others) for at least the past year they are more IMO misguided and counter-productive. They are easily avoidable by those that are aware of them via use of the other game modes and in fact I believe people that engage in such blockades are not acting in the best interests of the game as a whole. FD may permit it but I think they should enact measures to discourage such behaviours (e.g. Pilot Federation bounties for CMDR v. non-wanted CMDR incidents) else it will probably just force players out of Open in the long run and create an environment that may discourage newer players from ever playing in Open.
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