Combat Loggers... how many are there!!!! What kind of punishment do they receive and when?

[znôrt]

no need to punish the logger. you have his last stats, just let any disconnecting ship travel at same velocity in a stright line. it will be probably shredded to bits so there you have the incentive not to log: you'll always have a better chances not doing it.

it has also been said that combat log is mostly a defence vs unwanted pvp. i don't think that's the case. i've heard quite a few in ts openly admitting they had just combat logged while doing pve.

i'm guessing it's a technical issue. with current implementation it's probably not possible to keep the state of the ship in sync if the original client is lost, likely a hard nut to crack. however the solution is really bizarre: the 15 sec timeout (which solves nothing) + simply declaring it illegal, in a really curious way: on the forum. that is, to roughly the 4,5% of players. do you all realize that 95,5% of players maybe aren't even aware that combat logging is illegal? frontier hasn't even bothered to inform them, and that gives me a strong indication about how important this really is for them: not the least.

same as for me, btw. it's ugly but not the end of the world, and i can understand frontier. it actually benefits them that people has a way of escaping their ultimate fate, it keeps frustration levels low. it's just not something you would admit to the tiny vocal minority that demands a fix for it. it's way easier to tell them: hey, you are right, this is outrageous, send us proof and we will take good care of those filthy infractors! everyone happy!

well, not everyone, but more than enough. and what did it cost you? adding a trivial popup to the game and a couple of posts on the forum.

 

[Mohrgan]

You are wrong there is noticeable differences between the two and you can easily tell.

A menu log the ship will remain in the instance taking damage until the 15 seconds expires then it will vanish.

A Process close will leave the ship in the instance for as long as it takes to time out (20 - 40 seconds) and will take zero damage to shield or hull during this time.

Distinguishing between the two is simple.

That's one contention. Mine is that you can make judgments, and you can invent circumstance, but you really have no idea what happened. In essence you have no way to know if any rules were broken.

It's just the same as all of those guys calling PvP griefing. It's seeing ghosts.

 

[Vandal71]

Haha, just sounds like one pilot trying to ruin the experience of another pilot trying to ruin his. I love it.

Good luck to you both and God speed.

 

[excalibus]

That's one contention. Mine is that you can make judgments, and you can invent circumstance, but you really have no idea what happened. In essence you have no way to know if any rules were broken.

It's just the same as all of those guys calling PvP griefing. It's seeing ghosts.

then the solution would be for when a PC logs out via the in game menu for a message to pop up on all other PC's in the same instance saying Cmdr XYZ logging out in the local chat message box and perhaps repeated every 5 seconds from the logging PC's client during the timeout... This would make it detectable if the initiated logging out and then end tasked the program or pulled the network cable.
that way there could be no confusion about those who log out the way the game intends them to and those that pull the plug / end task


Cmdr XYZ logging out in 30
Cmdr XYZ logging out in 25
Cmdr XYZ logging out in 20
Cmdr XYZ logging out in 15
Cmdr XYZ logging out in 10
Cmdr XYZ logging out in 5

 

[Asp Explorer]

This would make it detectable if the initiated logging out and then end tasked the program or pulled the network cable.
that way there could be no confusion about those who log out the way the game intends them to and those that pull the plug / end task


Cmdr XYZ logging out in 30

Trivial to get around I'm afraid. There is no way to countdown something that you don't know about.

 

[dxm55]

Actually it should be a simple matter to make a player's ship persistent for a short period of time after he logs.
Everyone's instance needs to be cached periodically on the server. Yes it's a P2P connection, but you could always allocate a bit of server space for this purpose.

Once he disco's, the ship remains and continues on its last input setting for the next 30 secs or so, and if it gets destroyed, it simply updates the stats onto the game server.
The next time the player logs on, it syncs and updates the client. If the ship was destroyed, sends the player to the rebuy screen and updates the player's profile.

I've seen this system used in other MMO games.

 

[Four Muffins]

Let's say FD made a way to absolutely prevent anyone using the Task Manager to quit, and increased the logout time to two minutes, or made ships persistent, or whatever, giving pirates all the time they need to kill someone. Would you be that excited about playing in the incredible connected galaxy of pirate wings and the occasional free Sidewinders? Or should we expect players to avoid community goals until they have enough credits to get killed a bunch of times in the mailslot before they participate? During the Kausalya CG, and took my Courier in with 22 million, and finished with a loan, losing almost all of it at the station to a FAS wing. Whether or not logging in that situation is legal or bad form or whatever, it's a powerful incentive to just not play.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Let's say FD made a way to absolutely prevent anyone using the Task Manager to quit.

That is called malware. It's an offence under many jurisdictions to interfere with the normal workings of a computer and it's operation. FD would get crushed by lawsuits

 

[Four Muffins]

I just combat logged right then because someone knocked on my door as I submitted to the cops. There was a DBX nearby, too. It's pretty easy for an algoritm/program/moderator to see that as combat logging, isn't it?

Or are we talking specifically about people who fight then leave?

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That is called malware. It's an offence under many jurisdictions to interfere with the normal workings of a computer and it's operation. FD would get crushed by lawsuits

I know, just being hypothetical An, 'what if you got exactly what you want' kind of thing. =]

 

[shambles1980]

You are wrong there is noticeable differences between the two and you can easily tell.

A menu log the ship will remain in the instance taking damage until the 15 seconds expires then it will vanish.

A Process close will leave the ship in the instance for as long as it takes to time out (20 - 40 seconds) and will take zero damage to shield or hull during this time.

Distinguishing between the two is simple.

I have explained this to him countless times.
it however has become his last defense of the practice "you cant tell" even though you blatantly can tell, he invents some crazy idea that because he THINKS you cant tell if he combat logs. then you cant tell.
I will now call it ostrich syndrome:
"If i bury my head then no one can see me. and if they say they can i will reply with Well no you cant. i don't believe you can so you cant. And proof has no bearing on my opinion. and if you take videos and pictures of me whilst my head is buried and put them all over youtube I will deny that they count as proof. and claim that you cannot see me because i would prefer it if you couldn't."

Its best to just ignore him i think. as he obviously gave up on logic a while back.

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That is called malware. It's an offence under many jurisdictions to interfere with the normal workings of a computer and it's operation. FD would get crushed by lawsuits

its not malware if its part of the program you installed and works as intended is stated in the EULA and then stops doing what it was doing when the game is closed..

In fact there are quite a few things they could do.
even a simple background video player that is always on top and running silent would do the job. (player isn't running game wont open)
LOTS of older games have this just to make them work at all.
Its a bit annoying as you cant alt tab or see the task bar after installing.
You can still open the task manager though then press the 1st letter of the app you want to close then alt + e and do it blind. but if the launcher always renamed the game exe on launch then you wouldnt know what letter to press.. and with elite you are more likley to close down explorer.exe doing that than the game depending on how your task manager arranges your apps in use.

Any way simple truth is, it is not malware. maybe you would want to check up what malware is.
Oh and they have a termination clause in the eula so thy can change that any time they like.. and if you dont like it after the change then you either dont play or begrudgingly accept.


BUT..
dont help a single thing..
ppl can still turn off the router. or the pc and its the same end result so why would you bother.

 

[excalibus]

Trivial to get around I'm afraid. There is no way to countdown something that you don't know about.

please do explain how its trivial to get around? if the client is posting a message to the local instance while the commander logs out, if you end task or pull the plug before the client posts all of the messages then it will be clear to the other people that the player exploited using alt F4 or dropped the cable... with which they can feel confident in lodging a cheat report and would further add to the benefit of reducing the 'false' reports currently having to be investigated because of people logging out through the game menu but the other party not knowing they are logging out...

 

[crushdepth]

please do explain how its trivial to get around? if the client is posting a message to the local instance while the commander logs out, if you end task or pull the plug before the client posts all of the messages then it will be clear to the other people that the player exploited using alt F4 or dropped the cable... with which they can feel confident in lodging a cheat report and would further add to the benefit of reducing the 'false' reports currently having to be investigated because of people logging out through the game menu but the other party not knowing they are logging out...

...or had a power outage, or had a crash, or got disconnected from the server. These things are common, especially the last one. There is *no* way of knowing what happened.

 

[Bortas]

...or had a power outage, or had a crash, or got disconnected from the server. These things are common, especially the last one. There is *no* way of knowing what happened.

Sure, the standard excuse of combat loggers. Interestingly it always happens to them in the 0.01% of their game time they spend in PvP combat, but virtually never during the other 99.99%.

 

[AJW]

Sure, the standard excuse of combat loggers. Interestingly it always happens to them in the 0.01% of their game time they spend in PvP combat, but virtually never during the other 99.99%.

And you know that how, exactly?

 

[crushdepth]

Sure, the standard excuse of combat loggers. Interestingly it always happens to them in the 0.01% of their game time they spend in PvP combat, but virtually never during the other 99.99%.

In Thailand power outages are quite common, transient ISP issues are very common and disconnections from Frontiers servers are *routine* - average of two drop outs per gaming session for me. You can believe whatever you like, but the fact remains that you have *no* way of knowing what happened.

 

[StuF]

simply declaring it illegal, in a really curious way: on the forum. that is, to roughly the 4,5% of players. do you all realize that 95,5% of players maybe aren't even aware that combat logging is illegal? frontier hasn't even bothered to inform them, and that gives me a strong indication about how important this really is for them: not the least.

This is my point on the issue too!
I understand logging during combat is a frustrating to the PVP CMDRS who see it as an integral part of their gaming experience - but until the vast majority of players are made aware of the percieved "Cheat" and possible consequences I will continue to leave unwanted player interaction as and when I choose, using any methods at my disposal to preserve my assets/cargo/ship.
If I fancy a little PVP I will fight to the end and not exit when I am loosing however if dont I will exit immediatly - the rules need to be explained further ingame

 

[AJW]

... the rules need to be explained further ingame

They do. Or alternately, the PvPers can start their own group, with their own rules, and stop spamming the forum with endless threads about how other people should be forced to act as victims for their meaningless ambushes.

 

[excalibus]

...or had a power outage, or had a crash, or got disconnected from the server. These things are common, especially the last one. There is *no* way of knowing what happened.

yes indeed common but not consistent... once reports are made against a given 'commander' repeatedly and there is a consistency in the behaviour of the dropout etc then it becomes pretty obvious... so those common but not consistent dropouts that occur would be investigated and found to be a random dropout or random occcurance... over time repeated 'dropout' behhaviour would be examined more thoroughly I would think... not to mention the client does keep telemetry data that can tell fdev if indeed the client crashed, the client was told to shutdown by the system or if the network dropped out for any unspecified reason etc

Typical behaviour of network dropout behaviour that from my perspective would be detectable, when a network drop occurs, can we still see the gateway? if so then its just the connection beyond the gateway (aka router), flag that as possible cable pull unless they pulled out their ethernet cable for example but more and more these days people are using wifi connections... sooo its usually the router getting pulled out the wall is my guess...

Of course there is an obvious way around that...

So then do a reverse traceroute of the gateway IP... that will tell frontier if indeed the ISP is down or something inbetween the frontier server and the player's gateway is down... otherwise... it becomes a suspect plug pull.. But this would / should be something reserved for when a commander has been reported more than once for CL and that way FDev will have more of an idea if the player is yanking the plug or if they are just suffering an ISP issue...

As mentioned, program crashes and dumps can be logged and information from them retrieved by frontier if they wanted to go that route too for checking the client etc


So to say there is 'no way of knowing' is quite a misnomer really when the program can report back its behaviour up until the drop on the next login session.

 

[Siobhan]

Sure, the standard excuse of combat loggers. Interestingly it always happens to them in the 0.01% of their game time they spend in PvP combat, but virtually never during the other 99.99%.

Actually for me it happens 99% of the time when entering or leaving Supercruise, and very rarely while in combat - and when it has, I have been in no danger of losing the fight... well, not til I crashed at least.
However, since an interdiction results in leaving supercruise, it could happen (though to date it's not happened to me, that I know of).

 

[Lestenio]

Let's say FD made a way to absolutely prevent anyone using the Task Manager to quit, and increased the logout time to two minutes, or made ships persistent, or whatever, giving pirates all the time they need to kill someone. Would you be that excited about playing in the incredible connected galaxy of pirate wings and the occasional free Sidewinders? Or should we expect players to avoid community goals until they have enough credits to get killed a bunch of times in the mailslot before they participate? During the Kausalya CG, and took my Courier in with 22 million, and finished with a loan, losing almost all of it at the station to a FAS wing. Whether or not logging in that situation is legal or bad form or whatever, it's a powerful incentive to just not play.

What at happens if he hasn't disconnected but instead your network speed has dropped to the point where you can no longer support other connections? With p2p you can't tell which party was at fault or why the connection dropped. There is no way to tell who to punish.

Be a great way to grief people. Shoot them, slow your network down so they drop and then get them a shadow ban for something they didn't do.