COMBAT LOGGING solution -= EASY and WORKING =-

[Powderpanic]

Why don't they just put a big image as you login saying.

IF YOU LOG, YOU WILL GET BANNED!

At least that way people cannot say they didn't know.

 

[Robert Maynard]

You're not punishing them, because CTD's by solo players kill the instance. No NPC's shooting them. The server doesn't maintain the AI's, the client does.

If you're in PvP, the other PvP player(s) is going to notice that you stopped fighting and started flying in a straight line off into the infinite void. They'll know what happened. If they choose to not blow you up, great, but it's PvP. You should expect to lose your ship every time you engage no matter what. Doesn't matter if it's a bug or you being outflown.

If you're combat logging, you've just left your ship in the hands of someone who may not be very compassionate about you trying to exploit the game.

I'm on an imperfect connection. I'm using a directional Wifi antenna to pick up a hot spot signal from 1000 yards down the road. My connection gets erratic when the wind picks up or a bird lands on the antenna. I'm perfectly Okay with this.

As you point out, in Solo, there is no other game client to take over - and Frontier choose not to let another player's game client take over a departed player's ship either (ref Sandro's comment on there being a lack of an infallible arbiter).

The problem is that, (seemingly, from what they have said on the topic) from Frontier's perspective, it is difficult to differentiate between a deliberate disconnection and one that the player had nothing to do with - whether or not the departed ship was in PvP does not change this.

You might be happy to lose your ship every time you lose connection - however that's not the way that Frontier designed their game.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

As you point out, in Solo, there is no other game client to take over - and Frontier choose not to let another player's game client take over a departed player's ship either (ref Sandro's comment on there being a lack of an infallible arbiter).

The problem is that, (seemingly, from what they have said on the topic) from Frontier's perspective, it is difficult to differentiate between a deliberate disconnection and one that the player had nothing to do with - whether or not the departed ship was in PvP does not change this.

You might be happy to lose your ship every time you lose connection - however that's not the way that Frontier designed their game.

Lack of an infallible arbiter? It's a video game, not metaphysics.

Again, you don't need to differentiate. Stop mollycoddling everything and living in terror of upsetting a small handful of people. You want a solution to combat logging, and this is a solution.

You didn't read my post. You don't lose your ship every time you lose connection, you only lose it if another player is sitting there shooting at it for 5 minutes. Lesson to be learned? Don't log off in front of aggressive players.

Stop trying to protect 100% of the people 100% of the time, you just end up failing 100% of the time.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Lack of an infallible arbiter? It's a video game, not metaphysics.

Again, you don't need to differentiate. Stop mollycoddling everything and living in terror of upsetting a small handful of people. You want a solution to combat logging, and this is a solution.

You didn't read my post. You don't lose your ship every time you lose connection, you only lose it if another player is sitting there shooting at it for 5 minutes. Lesson to be learned? Don't log off in front of aggressive players.

Stop trying to protect 100% of the people 100% of the time, you just end up failing 100% of the time.

Yes, of course it is a video game - a game where, while PvP is possible, it is not in any way required - and the game has not been designed around it.

Frontier choose to differentiate.

There is no ship to shoot at.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Yes, of course it is a video game - a game where, while PvP is possible, it is not in any way required - and the game has not been designed around it.

Frontier choose to differentiate.

There is no ship to shoot at.

And Combat Logging became a major complaint because they made the wrong decision. Time to fix the mistake.

 

[Robert Maynard]

And Combat Logging became a major complaint because they made the wrong decision. Time to fix the mistake.

Oh, I agree that it is a major issue (for some players, anyway) - and I expect that Frontier are still working on developing an acceptable* solution. Whether Frontier made the wrong decision (on what specifically?) or not rather depends on their vision for the game.

*: to all players, not just those who suffer the effects of the problem.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Oh, I agree that it is a major issue (for some players, anyway) - and I expect that Frontier are still working on developing an acceptable* solution. Whether Frontier made the wrong decision (on what specifically?) or not rather depends on their vision for the game.

*: to all players, not just those who suffer the effects of the problem.

You're doing it again. Just give it up. You can't satisfy 100% of the people 100% of the time. You pick what works, you follow through with it, and unless you made a mistake and didn't get the desired outcome you move on with your life.

 

[Han_Zen]

An easy, cheap solution that will reduce combat logging, is to introduce a 30 minute cool down after ungraceful exit.

You simply have to take a half hour break and contemplate you sins, after logging.

No one is really punished, but it reduces the amount of 'casual loggers'.

 

[Robert Maynard]

You're doing it again. Just give it up. You can't satisfy 100% of the people 100% of the time. You pick what works, you follow through with it, and unless you made a mistake and didn't get the desired outcome you move on with your life.

Indeed, Frontier can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time.

The fact that Frontier could have sent every player to the rebuy screen after a lost connection (of any kind) - but haven't - might indicate something in this regard.

 

[Robert Maynard]

An easy, cheap solution that will reduce combat logging, is to introduce a 30 minute cool down after ungraceful exit.

You simply have to take a half hour break and contemplate you sins, after logging.

No one is really punished, but it reduces the amount of 'casual loggers'.

How does Frontier differentiate between a player with a poor connection / hardware failure / etc. and a deliberate disconnection?

.... as such a policy would punish everyone who lost connection, not just Combat Loggers.

 

[XenonBuster]

If everybody stayed out of open then the griefers would have nothing to complain about except when they spoiled their own enjoyment of the game

 

[XW_Ziggy]

Combat logging isn't a problem, as far as I can see; Surely most PVP killing is a *wanted* PVP player with murders to their name attempting to murder a *clean* PVE'er. If the PVE'er combat logs, the PVP player has won. They weren't going to get any rep or any bounty for it anyway, so the only difference is that their own bounty hasn't been increased from assault to murder. I honestly don't understand the anguish CL'ing causes these people and I don't understand what they even get from it in the first place.

If FD were stringent about enforcing penalties for combat loggers, the whole game would suffer massively because it would force less diversity. Rather than min/maxing your trader for cargo, explorer for jumprange, and miner for gathering efficiency, we'd all have to play the PVP meta game in open. CL'ing is an escape route for people who didn't want to lose everything just because they chose to leave the hangar in a PVE ship instead of a PVP ship. I'll definitely log in my unarmed explorerconda after coming back from a 6000LY passenger mission. The PVP'er gets nothing from the kill anyway, but if I'd gone out with a massive shield, countermeasures, module reinforcements and weapons, that 12000LY round trip in a heavier PVP-meta ship would have taken an extra two or three hours of jump/scoop/repeat gameplay

There's more to this game than murdering other CMDRs and I think if you're madcrazy upset that you didn't get your pretty explosion then you have some serious psychological problems that you should look at first; It's not healthy to get your kicks from causing misery to others, especially when it's often "bully vs defenseless" in a lot of Elite's PVP encounters. If you watch the "complaint" videos where the attacker uploads footage of the combat logger, you'll often see the attacker send the message along the lines of "cooperate, submit to scans and hand over cargo" or similar but then they start shooting before even giving the victim a chance to even reply. Most of them are simply out to send traders/miners/explorers to the rebuy screen for no obvious reason and by demanding that traders/miners/explorers don't combat log they are basically asking FD to make sure everyone is playing a PVP game. Sorry ladies and gents, but elite is primarily a PVE experience. There's no way I'm going to agree to anything that detracts from that just to appease the 30% of players who PVP 10% of the time.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Combat logging isn't a problem, as far as I can see;

It's an exploit used to avoid consequences - and Frontier don't like it when players engage in it.

 

[Kaocraft]

#1 post that is not helping the problem at ALL! Great, man. Report them is not a solution. It didn't help for the last 2 years, it won't help in the future. None of the loggers cares about the EULA. Do you cross the street if the signal is red? No, you never do? Poor soul.

Thing is you're advocating for a change to the game, ie you're asking Frontier to take a specific action to fix the problem. As long as we're begging Frontier to do something; rather than beg them to implement your idea, I'm going beg them to enforce the EULA instead.

 

[[VR]tailgunner30uk]

You're doing it again. Just give it up. You can't satisfy 100% of the people 100% of the time. You pick what works, you follow through with it, and unless you made a mistake and didn't get the desired outcome you move on with your life.

They don't have to, the majority have already in multiple threads of a similar ilk to this indicated that the problem is relatively insignificant, only of importance to a tiny but vociferous minority. Perhaps, rather than continuing this diatribe you should take your own advice and accept that, as the minority, your opinion should and does have less weight than the majority.

Like many others I wish Frontier had spent significantly less time pandering to the loudest, and listened to the real majority, who want better and deeper mechanics to the game. Instead of devoting cycles of development to pure PvP aspects such as Wings, endless rounds of weapons balancing, messing about with interdiction mechanics to make it easier for PvP players, shield cell banks, new "military" slots for armour upgades, CQC, and a whole cycle of beta testing that brought very little of consequence for the majority.

The answer to the OP and yourself has been a repeated firm and decisive NO, and no amount of wheedling, whining or foot-stamping intransigence in any number of past or future threads, hopefully, will change this.

 

[Kaocraft]

How does Frontier differentiate between a player with a poor connection / hardware failure / etc. and a deliberate disconnection?

.... as such a policy would punish everyone who lost connection, not just Combat Loggers.

Unbelievably easy. Only apply it when you're in a combat situation with another player and have taken fire from said player. Done. There will be a tiny handful of edge cases where coincidentally someone gets disconnected in the middle of a fight and is penalized for it unfairly and that's a reasonable tradeoff imho.

 

[Han_Zen]

How does Frontier differentiate between a player with a poor connection / hardware failure / etc. and a deliberate disconnection?

.... as such a policy would punish everyone who lost connection, not just Combat Loggers.

Jepp it would, but it's bo biggie. If your network is down, you probably need the half hour break anyway.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Unbelievably easy. Only apply it when you're in a combat situation with another player and have taken fire from said player. Done. There will be a tiny handful of edge cases where coincidentally someone gets disconnected in the middle of a fight and is penalized for it unfairly and that's a reasonable tradeoff imho.

.... yet Frontier chose not to go down that route....

 

[Robert Maynard]

Jepp it would, but it's bo biggie. If your network is down, you probably need the half hour break anyway.

A dropped connection does not mean that the network is necessarily down (as that is not the only reason that a connection can be lost without the player themself doing it).

 

[Zambrick]

You're doing it again. Just give it up. You can't satisfy 100% of the people 100% of the time. You pick what works, you follow through with it, and unless you made a mistake and didn't get the desired outcome you move on with your life.

Then the same can be said about the so called problem with combat logging can it not?

You dont move on without addressing an issue. You fix the issue. If the way that you fix the issue is not embraced or followed by your user group, you find out why and you provide a better solution. Eventually the system is rigid and unchanging. It becomes what the users want but it was guided by the build team. Its basic project management.

The one and only problem that FDEV made was that they provided a sandbox environment with 0 over site. Usually games address this issue by having an in game policing element to it. The current in game policing and punishment system is as hands off and worthless as can be while still calling it policing. If Pirates had to risk never getting their ship back and losing their entire credit balance, then they would think twice about destroying ships for no reason and focus on being an actual bad guy in the game.

That will be the only way they can keep the world still open and have it mean something. If they do not take it to the required level of risking it all as an outlaw all or nothing attitude, then they will need to add a PVP flagging system and build entire missions and story arcs around PVP.