Combat logging no longer an exploit? * trigger warning *

For me personally, I don't care if someone logs on me or not. If it happens, meh. I go about my day. Doesn't stop me from talking to them or fighting them down the road.

Others, yeah. Thats why I said what I said earlier.
I had my fair share of getting annoyed by loggers. I won't deny that :LOL:
Mostly for piracy though, not PvP. PvP I count a log as win.
Good to see you back by the way :)
 

The Replicated Man

T
I had my fair share of getting annoyed by loggers. I won't deny that :LOL:
Mostly for piracy though, not PvP. PvP I count a log as win.
Good to see you back by the way :)
Yeah I had sent a ticket into Frontier Support asking them to delete my forum account several years ago, after getting fed up. I had forgotten it was registered to a old email I no longer used, so when I came back my account was banned for duplication, which surprised me. I sent a ticket in and they explained that It was due to my email. I asked them if I would be able to re create my account using my original account email and they told me no problem. account.JPG
 
This still going?

Actually we can notice a simple test. FD don't allow discussion of exploits in this forum, so if combat logging is an exploit as I believe, they'll be along to delete this thread soon. :)
 
without a referee server between any players sharing an instance, there is no way to fairly handle combat logging.

A disconnection from Player B on player A's client due to something on player B's side is no different visually than a disconnection of player B by Player A from player A's side. So there's no fair way to handle the logoff sequence of a player.

That's where a referee server comes into play. They would operate the hand-off as an impartial third party. Allowing players to immediately leave whenever they want with the knowledge that if they are doing so in a designated situation, their ship is still "active" in the game for a certain amount of time even if they totally shut their client down or disconnect their internet.

Elite doesn't have that and it's absolutely required to have any kind of fair handling of combat logging that manages not just the intentional exits, but the "unintentional as far as the client knows" ones too.

The cheapest kind of referee server would only be able to handle instances shared between more than 1 human as it would just shuffle the player -> npc handoff to the remaining human clients rather than simulate the player itself. This means combat logging while alone is still going to be possible. I doubt fdev would ever think to splurge on a proper setup though.
 
Doesn't ganking violate the very same term highlighted?
After all:
4.4 You may not use the Game or any Online Features in a manner that could damage, disable, impair, overburden or compromise our systems or security or interfere with the experience of other users of the Game or any Online Feature.

Works both ways, surely? :devilish:

Don't forget that FDev is the initial arbiter of whether or not specific actions are considered in breach of their EULA.

It certainly could be argued that simply attacking another player is a breach of S4.4 of the game's EULA but what do you think FDev are going to do if you try and report somebody on that basis?

Course, if you really wanted to, I suppose you could go to court and, with the help of a super-duper lawyer, you might even win your case, and then what?
Maybe you'd be awarded a refund and you could stop playing a game that includes activities you find unacceptable?

Let's face it, common sense dictates that being attacked by other ships IS an integral part of a space-combat game so you're probably going to struggle to convince anybody that a player who attacks you is violating S4.4 of the EULA.
 
Don't forget that FDev is the initial arbiter of whether or not specific actions are considered in breach of their EULA.

It certainly could be argued that simply attacking another player is a breach of S4.4 of the game's EULA but what do you think FDev are going to do if you try and report somebody on that basis?

Course, if you really wanted to, I suppose you could go to court and, with the help of a super-duper lawyer, you might even win your case, and then what?
Maybe you'd be awarded a refund and you could stop playing a game that includes activities you find unacceptable?

Let's face it, common sense dictates that being attacked by other ships IS an integral part of a space-combat game so you're probably going to struggle to convince anybody that a player who attacks you is violating S4.4 of the EULA.
I have a well-developed sense of the ridiculous, otherwise I wouldn't be haunting this place...
The exact wording can be used for both situations - ridiculous?
Of course, only 1 side of the debate gets salty when such trivialities are pointed out, even more ridiculous...
Bleating about Clogging will never stop, it is unlikely that Frontier are going to invest much of their money or time to something so inconsequential (in real terms) so it can be debated from here until the next decade, the liklihood of it stopping is what?
 
Bleating about Clogging will never stop, it is unlikely that Frontier are going to invest much of their money or time to something so inconsequential (in real terms) so it can be debated from here until the next decade, the liklihood of it stopping is what?

About the same as there ever being any meaningful risk or consequence for much of anything, as such things would depend on the closure of these exploits (such as being able to preserve assets by severing connection).
 
About the same as there ever being any meaningful risk or consequence for much of anything, as such things would depend on the closure of these exploits (such as being able to preserve assets by severing connection).
I'd be totally behind every exploit in the game being blocked, including CLogging, but that isn't likely to happen real soon, I'd guess.
Of course, getting rid of other exploits would also generate another fresh pile of salt.

No, the liklihood of there being meaningful risk or consequence in the game is very slim, probably due to the current majority of players not having any desire for things to be that way being accommodated by Frontier in their development to date.

Even C&P (a favourite subject here too) doesn't really have teeth, I've been 'sent to jail' more times for petty offences than I care to count, but could fly around with notoriety 5 pretty much unmolested...

It is fun to debate such things, but this one has been, like any of the emotive subjects, beaten to death but just won't stay down :)

It is the nature of some to cheat, it won't go away just because it is disliked by many.
 
Bleating about Clogging will never stop, it is unlikely that Frontier are going to invest much of their money or time to something so inconsequential (in real terms) so it can be debated from here until the next decade, the liklihood of it stopping is what?

Said it before but I honestly think the "cure" would be worse than the "disease" in this case.

I mean, currently the best case scenario is that you're engaged in combat for a meaningful reason.
You're winning and your opponent CLs.
So, you don't get to see a pretty explosion, you don't get to scoop a few mediocre mat's and (potentially) you don't get to score PP points for your side.
Big whup.

In the absence of a major netcode re-write, it seems like the only viable solution for task-killing is to implement "ghost ships" which remain in the instance to be destroyed after a player task-kills.
Trouble is, IP manipulation tools allow players to remotely disconnect other players from the game server.
That means a malicious player could use such a tool to disconnect every other player in an instance and give them free-reign to destroy their "ghost ship" after disconnecting the player.

Welcome to a game where every player suffers constant "random" disconnections and subsequent rebuys every time they encounter other players.

The "cure" for CLing is likely to create an incentive for far more malicious behaviour.
 
I'm sure you have. But you DID know that my estimate of 20 seconds was incorrect; that was WHY you answered. So you HAVE combat logged enough to know the difference.
Cheers!
(snicker)

Oh dear, have you been digging in and defending menu-logging (exiting via the game menu with a 15sec danger countdown) as a valid tactic, but actually (incorrectly) refering to that as combat-logging (instantly exiting via router/task Killing). That's really a bit sad, given that both terms are quite clearly defined earlier in the thread - by posts quoting FDev. Maybe you should be snickering at yourself?
 
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Deleted member 121570

D
Let's face it, common sense dictates that being attacked by other ships IS an integral part of a space-combat game so you're probably going to struggle to convince anybody that a player who attacks you is violating S4.4 of the EULA.

As mentioned earlier, from a devil's advocate perspective - you also might struggle to convince anyone that anyone choosing to cease playing the game and turning it off is violating S4.4 of the EULA also. Kinda hard to use the game when you're not using the game.

It's more likely not a EULA violation, just a policy decision that's hard to enforce with the netcode reasons already described. Nobody's legally entitled to commandeer your time and electricity for a single second.

At least folks who CL can be social outcasts via shame posts on Reddit :D
 
There was never any stance of FDev regarding combat logging in the EULA.

It's an online game, having some PvP element just reposing on the willingness or ability of players to maintain their connection so one side or the other can "win" is completely silly. Just consider you win if someone logs on you.
What's really silly is that players feel they need to cheat in a multiplayer game.
How about you just take the rebuy and call it a loss 🤷‍♂️

In my 3 years of pvping I can count on two hands how many times I've seen someone with a legitimate connection issue.
 
The only reasonable response to any thread like this is: "Who Cares?".

If people need to toughen up and make lite of ship destruction, I mean they're only pixels. Then some other people should just toughen up and make lite of a ship logging, I mean they're only pixels.

Complaints about CLogging rank right up there with complaints about ship destruction. Wasted effort.
Let's put it another way. What if you're playing a battle royale like CoD Warzone and you've fought tooth and nail to get to the final circle. Now it's you vs one other player. You engage and down them, they crawl behind a rock and yank their internet cord. The game then concludes in a draw instead of the win you worked for.

This is why CLogging sucks. It isn't just people 'escaping' a gank or those who play open and dislike PvP either. It's PvP pilots in consented 1v1's, it's salty pilots who can't imagine that a Cobra is about to kill their Cutter, it's hotshots logging to 'perserve' their 'immortal' reputation.

Most games have measures against purposefully disconnecting from a match, either by awarding the win to the wronged party or by punishing the offending party. ED sadly, does not.
 
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Trouble is, IP manipulation tools allow players to remotely disconnect other players from the game server.

Players can disconnect specific players from their own clients, but not from anyone else or any of Frontier's (authentication, adjudication, transaction, chat, etc) servers. It takes more than a spoofed IP to pretend to be a different client...the game generally works fine with mutliple connections coming from the same IP address.

Anyway, "ghost ships" aren't practical on the current networking implementation.

About the only thing that is practical without significant changes is collecting and actually reviewing telemetry to look for patterns in disconnections, so habitual abusers can be punished. This is largely what Frontier claims to do, but it's also clear that enforcement is arbitrary and inconsistent.
 
As mentioned earlier, from a devil's advocate perspective - you also might struggle to convince anyone that anyone choosing to cease playing the game and turning it off is violating S4.4 of the EULA also. Kinda hard to use the game when you're not using the game.

It's more likely not a EULA violation, just a policy decision that's hard to enforce with the netcode reasons already described. Nobody's legally entitled to commandeer your time and electricity for a single second.

Again, unless you're prepared to take FDev to court and obtain an independant ruling, it's probably always going to be up to FDev to be the arbiters of how their EULA is imposed.

You can't "cease playing the game and turn it off" using the tools provided BY the game without going through a procedure that FDev considers acceptable.
The only way you can "cease playing the game and turn it off" without going though FDev's procedure is by doing stuff that FDev might consider to be a breach of S4.4.

And it'll be FDev who decides if that's the case or not.
 
About the only thing that is practical without significant changes is collecting and actually reviewing telemetry to look for patterns in disconnections, so habitual abusers can be punished. This is largely what Frontier claims to do, but it's also clear that enforcement is arbitrary and inconsistent.

The irony being that simply incentivises people to task-kill the game more often in order to avoid creating a trend that suggests they only "get disconnected" during combat.

Still, I guess people who're dumb enough to get caught repeatedly CLing probably deserve any punishment they get.
 
Nobody's legally entitled to commandeer your time and electricity for a single second.

No one is legally entitled, at least in any jurisdiction I'm aware of, to retain access to a service they're breaking the rules of either.

At least folks who CL can be social outcasts via shame posts on Reddit :D

Not if no one sees them do it, which is probably the case for the bulk of "combat logging" (I suspect, but cannot prove, that the most common reason for illicit disconnection is when BGS/PP bots get stuck, in Solo, and kill/restart the client to avoid delays). The objective effects to the game world, as opposed to the subjective effects to other players, is the same, even if no one else is around.

The irony being that simply incentivises people to task-kill the game more often in order to avoid creating a trend that suggests they only "get disconnected" during combat.

It would not be easy to fake a trend of random disconnections that wouldn't look like someone faking a trend of random disconnections. And anyone able to do so would probably be harming their CMDR's ability to influence the game, by wasting so much time, more than the actual consequences of ship loss would.
 
Let's put it another way. What if you're playing a battle royale like CoD Warzone and you've fought tooth and nail to get to the final circle. Now it's you vs one other player. You engage and down them, they crawl behind a rock and yank their internet cord. The game then concludes in a draw instead of the win you worked for.

This is why CLogging sucks. It isn't just people 'escaping' a gank or those who play open and dislike PvP either. It's PvP pilots in consented 1v1's, it's salty pilots who can't imagine that a Cobra is about to kill their Cutter, it's hotshots logging to 'perserve' their 'immortal' reputation.

Most games have measures against purposefully disconnecting from a match, either by awarding the win to the wronged party or by punishing the offending party. ED sadly, does not.

But, you're not. You're playing a space game with no winning, that happens to use a P2P arrangement. Apples and oranges. Or, maybe sour grapes. In the end, who cares?
 
A simple quitters penalty at minimum would be great. Where if you disconnect anytime your faced with the quit timer, you have to wait x amount of time to play again at all.

Tons of games do this, unfair to actual disconnections,? Yeah a little. But a worthwhile change anyway. If you're disconnecting you're probably not gonna be able to play until that issue is resolved anyway
 
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