Combat logging is out of hand, and I'm about to quit because of it

[MJC]

Exactly this, insurance is a terrible game mechanic that stifles game-play. Get rid of it all together. Why is this not obvious to FD ?

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I dont know about getting rid of it altogether, but getting rid of it in warzones certainly. I feel that FD can't fix this problem. The p2p infrastructure will haunt them forever. Am I the only person who would happily pay 10e or £10 a month to have a single open instance and no combat logging?
On the other hand I offered a solution in another thread but I guess FD devs are too busy to even read it.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=131681&highlight=
Sometimes I wonder why do I bother with suggestions and writing when no one from FD responds. So I will add my voice to this thread to say that something must be done about combat logging urgently. FD please respond.

P.S. Regarding cargo maybe 10% cargo insurance (If you loose your ship pay 10% of your cargo value and get your cargo back?)

 

[Jaeger]

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I feel that FD can't fix this problem. The p2p infrastructure will haunt them forever.

Sometimes I wonder why do I bother with suggestions and writing when no one from FD responds. So I will add my voice to this thread to say that something must be done anout combat logging urgently. FD please respond.

The initial game design was never beta tested for game-play properly. They were too focused on pushing out a release to do anything more than functional testing. The testing that was done all seemed to be based on PvP weapon balances. So the actual underlying game has suffered. We are stuck with a specious debt economy that is supposed to magically create in-game meaning, when in fact all it does is stifle game-play.

And no it's not worth putting forward ideas, there is no engagement from FD. The corporate interests are entirely focused on the business plan and any functioning game implementation that allows them to release into the console market is what we are stuck with.

Competition in the space simulator market will give us a better game eventually. ED is not it.

 

[Extreme_One]

I asked this before and I have not seen a reply so I will ask again:

Why not make it impossible to logoff/quit/save/just plain leave the game unless your ship is stationary?
...

What do you mean by "impossible"?

So you can disable the logoff functionality but you can't stop someone pulling the plug on their internet or switching their PC off.

So what will be the penalty or hinderance to those that do, or to those that suffer an internet outage or power failure etc. etc.

The point is you cannot make it impossible to exit the game.

You can only decide how to handle things when it does happen.

 

[MJC]

Play the odds. Even if you only play PVP and nothing else, How much time is actually spent during the (if your winning) killshot or the (if your losing) death throes? In the total time of play, I will estimate a low single digit percentage.

Now tell me what the odds are that during a rare critical moment, a rare "oops" occurs with my connection. From a practical standpoint, I have similar odds of winning a lottery.

Now impose a automatic sanction on any unintentional exits from the game. I don't care if my cat jumped on my keyboard. Who gives a rip if it's too blame on my "lousy" internet connection. Cry me a river for a sudden power loss,,,,,,

Since nothing is perfect, we all play the odds. In real life AND in games.

Applause. +1 . You said it all. But unfortunatelly FD are not in a position to sancion players at the moment. They need everyone to play for financial reasons. If this is the case then something needs to be done about insurance. However for major combat loggers perhaps one month ban from the open as a warning and then 3month ban and finally permanent ban if they carry on?

 

[Jaeger]

No, it means death doesn't matter. The game becomes counterstrike in spaceships.

Did you read the rest? People will still log out so we'd still have the same problem.

Death really does not matter, except you get sent back to your point of origin... you know like in Elite the original game this is based on. Removing the primary reason for the logofski would significantly help, and from there it's not so difficult to implement more managed logofski solutions. Certainly vastly easier than the current situation which I agree is untenable. What other reasonable solutions have you come across ?

 

[Riktar]

What do you mean by "impossible"?

So you can disable the logoff functionality but you can't stop someone pulling the plug on their internet or switching their PC off.

So what will be the penalty or hinderance to those that do, or to those that suffer an internet outage or power failure etc. etc.

The point is you cannot make it impossible to exit the game.

You can only decide how to handle things when it does happen.

Impossible meaning that if the ship is still moving, the save button is disabled. Simple enough.

And as I stated, impose an automatic sanction on "accidental" disconnects. And I agree, its impossible to determine if the forced disconnect was intentional or not.

But the odds of it being unintentional (especially during a "critical" moment) are about the same as winning the lottery.

 

[MJC]

And no it's not worth putting forward ideas, there is no engagement from FD. The corporate interests are entirely focused on the business plan and any functioning game implementation that allows them to release into the console market is what we are stuck with.

Competition in the space simulator market will give us a better game eventually. ED is not it.

Just makes me so sad. I have been waiting for this game for 17 years since First Encounters on Amiga. Followed Frontier website every few months every year to see when "Outsider" will be finished. I looked for any little info on Elite 4 on the web. I was so excited to back the kickstarter. This game is really really important to me. I really wish they could do something about it and Im trying to help, but youre probably right...

 

[Jordan Cobalt]

Applause. +1 . You said it all. But unfortunatelly FD are not in a position to sancion players at the moment. They need everyone to play for financial reasons. If this is the case then something needs to be done about insurance. However for major combat loggers perhaps one month ban from the open as a warning and then 3month ban and finally permanent ban if they carry on?

You don't even need to start at 1 month. A simple warning would show people, fd knows they are logging and aim to stop it. That will decrease logging pretty quickly. If someone keeps it up, then a 1 day, 3 day, 1 week, 1 month, then 3 months.

 

[Jaeger]

Just makes me so sad. I have been waiting for this game for 17 years since First Encounters on Amiga. Followed Frontier website every few months every year to see when "Outsider" will be finished. I looked for any little info on Elite 4 on the web. I was so excited to back the kickstarter. This game is really really important to me. I really wish they could do something about it and Im trying to help, but youre probably right...

Me too, sad and very angry. We are stuck with what we have, maybe the mission overhaul in 1.3 will make it more enjoyable. We can but hope.

 

[Riktar]

Applause. +1 . You said it all. But unfortunatelly FD are not in a position to sancion players at the moment. They need everyone to play for financial reasons. If this is the case then something needs to be done about insurance. However for major combat loggers perhaps one month ban from the open as a warning and then 3month ban and finally permanent ban if they carry on?

Complete agreement on this.

And when Frontier determines that enough people are leaving/uninstalling the game because of "logoffski's" they will determine what the greater financial loss is: "Unfair" sanctions for accidental disconnects which will cause rage quits or "Unfair" rage quits for being cheated out of a victory.

In the end it will come down to percentages.....

 

[Jaeger]

You cannot, IMO, fix this. How do you physically stop people from disconnecting their internet connection? you cannot control such things with an in game fix or mechanic, its just not possible. If the player disappears for whatever reason then the action is forfeit, he loses, his ship blows up and to all intents and purposes he lost the fight. To fix this we need to make it a totally pointless action and that would do it, yes some would be innocent but you should not be sacrificing the 99 to save 1 but the other way round, you can't please all the people all the time.

You can try to fix it, and subtle measures like persistence of state across the instance go a long way to proving the tools necessary.

 

[Jordan Cobalt]

Death really does not matter, except you get sent back to your point of origin... you know like in Elite the original game this is based on. Removing the primary reason for the logofski would significantly help, and from there it's not so difficult to implement more managed logofski solutions. Certainly vastly easier than the current situation which I agree is untenable. What other reasonable solutions have you come across ?

Well you lose insurance, cargo, exploration data, bounty vouchers, and pay any fines or bounties(if you have to respawn in that jurisdiction). So right now death is kinda bad.

I haven't played the original elite but wasn't death game over? I mean you could always save scum but that's every single player game ever. At least that's what I heard, again I didn't play it.

And yes, I do have seen a better solutions, glad you asked.

I posted this earlier but , here it is again.

This is the best solution I can think of. It's just a rough draft atm the numbers can be changed.

I came up with a points system for the severity of the logging situation. This only applies to player-server disconnects, not p2p disconnects so as to not be exploitable.

Check all that apply to the disconnection situation.

1 point, lose connection with server during combat with npc.
2 points, lose connection with server during combat with Cmdr.
1 point, disconnect with at least 20% damage taken during a fight.
1 point, disconnect with at least 60% damage taken during a fight.
1 point, disconnect with thrusters at 0% during combat.

Now for what the points mean.

At 12 points, a warning message stating frequent disconnects during combat pops up.

30 points, 1 day temp ban from open

42 points, 3 day temp ban from open.

58 points, week long temp ban from open.

95 points, 3 week long ban from open.

Points reset at a rate of 2 a day or 14 a week.

 

[Jaeger]

I haven't played the original elite but wasn't death game over?

And yes, I do have a better idea, glad you asked.

Thanks for confirming that you do not know what you are talking about. but the points are not a bad idea, add some automation to make it a workable solution.

 

[Riktar]

This is the best solution I can think of. It's just a rough draft atm the numbers are can be changed.

I came up with a points system for the severity of the logging situation. This only applies to player server disconnects, not p2p disconnects so as to not be exploitable.

Check all that apply to the disconnection situation.

1 point, lose connection with server during combat with npc.
2 points, lose connection with server during combat with Cmdr.
1 point, disconnect with at least 20% damage taken during a fight.
1 point, disconnect with at least 60% damage taken during a fight.
1 point, disconnect with thrusters at 0% during combat.

Now for what the points mean.

At 12 points, a warning message stating frequent disconnects during combat pops up.

30 points, 1 day temp ban from open

42 points, 3 day temp ban from open.

58 points, week long temp ban from open.

95 points, 3 week long ban from open.

Points reset at a rate of 2 a day or 14 a week.

Since Frontier is tracking this stuff I think this would be a viable consideration.

Point assessment not withstanding,,,,,,,,,,

 

[Bweer]

The easiest and most fair solution would be to make being killed by another player NOT giving you a penalty. Maybe lose the cargo you have but else no penalty.

That way, if you're attacked by a 8 year old that thinks its fun to attack and kill you over and over, you can get your ship back for no costs and there is little harm done.

I think the only reason for this behaviour are the severe penaltys that are involved.

If i could just get my ship back after being attacked by a player i wouldnt mind if he would kill me. Right now i do.

 

[Gold Member]

You cannot, IMO, fix this. How do you physically stop people from disconnecting their internet connection? you cannot control such things with an in game fix or mechanic, its just not possible. If the player disappears for whatever reason then the action is forfeit, he loses, his ship blows up and to all intents and purposes he lost the fight. To fix this we need to make it a totally pointless action and that would do it, yes some would be innocent but you should not be sacrificing the 99 to save 1 but the other way round, you can't please all the people all the time.

There aren't two sides. I played EVE for a long time and combat disconnects are rare because an aggression timer - if you fired on another ship or were fired upon - means your ship will stay in space for several minutes. NO EXCEPTIONS. Most of the time a combat disconnect is a rage-quit as someone is about to lose a very expensive ship.

I have been in fleet battles where people have disconnected but were able to reconnect with 30 seconds or so.

If your connection drops you while in space at any other time your ship will warp a fairly short distance (in EVE 90 million miles) and then disappear. In fact, manually disconnecting while in space gives two options - immediate or 'safe' log off. Immediate means you disconnect but your ship will still be there for 20 seconds. Safe means you wait the 20 seconds so if someone does happen to find you you can still cancel the logoff and get out of there.

If Frontier wants to make the universe dangerous, set some dangerous rules everyone knows about and then never have to deal with the issue again.

 

[Extreme_One]

The easiest and most fair solution would be to make being killed by another player NOT giving you a penalty. Maybe lose the cargo you have but else no penalty.

That way, if you're attacked by a 8 year old that thinks its fun to attack and kill you over and over, you can get your ship back for no costs and there is little harm done.

I think the only reason for this behaviour are the severe penaltys that are involved.

If i could just get my ship back after being attacked by a player i wouldnt mind if he would kill me. Right now i do.

Isn't this game called Elite: Dangerous?

Without any risk at all I think the game would need to be renamed to Elite: Harmless.

 

[Quineloe]

Jordan Cobalt, you need to remember you're arguing with someone who is defending this exploit in the first place. His literal response to cheating and exploiting is "oh boo hoo". Once you realize you're arguing about cheating with a pro-cheater, you can cease all discussion.

 

[TriumphANT]

The easiest and most fair solution would be to make being killed by another player NOT giving you a penalty. Maybe lose the cargo you have but else no penalty.

That way, if you're attacked by a 8 year old that thinks its fun to attack and kill you over and over, you can get your ship back for no costs and there is little harm done.

I think the only reason for this behaviour are the severe penaltys that are involved.

If i could just get my ship back after being attacked by a player i wouldnt mind if he would kill me. Right now i do.

There's definitely a flaw as I said earlier in this thread. If I have a 12MCr ship, and 1MCr, then I can lose 90% of 13 weeks work in game to two bad experiences. The points system is bad. It's a bit too close to a "score", which is kinda anti-Elite, but it does head in the right direction. Without a new system, players like me will never try out Open. Not because I'm a poor player. Not because I'm scared of losing stuff. I've finished dozens of games, and getting "taken down" is fine, so long as I can dust myself off and continue with small losses, but losing all of my months of work due to a psycho player who has NO sanction due to attacking me isn't worth it. Thusly Solo. Thusly avoiding the feeling that I just might have to log off to avoid loss. I'm not justifying logging off at all. I just think that playing ED as it is has some minor flaws in the death economics.

 

[MJC]

Isn't this game called Elite: Dangerous?

Without any risk at all I think the game would need to be renamed to Elite: Harmless.

Dude haven't you been reading the thread? Many many people combat log prior to destruction (30% in warzones). Traders in open probably even more if they have a cargohold full. The game is not dangerous in its current state - it is broken. We need to do something about combat logging and making people "feel the pain" is not working with the current p2p infrastucture. As they probably wont be banned at present the cost of death needs to be lowered. Or the point based system mentioned above implemented. What you are saying adds nothing to the solution.