I just finished some tests with the help of Cmdr. Tareck and confirmed a suspicion I had. This has been floating around for some time and indeed it doesn't take a genius to figure out that P2P networking comes with certain caveats, which can be exploited.
We have multiple threads (here, here and many more) bemoaning the alleged inactivity of Frontier with regards to Combat Logging. In fact, any time someone brings up sealclubbing, ganking or similar things, the immediate response is that this is somehow the fault of so many people combat logging. Why don't Frontier do something against commanders who combat log?
Because they can't.
Let me elaborate: They are perfectly able to restrict access to players who have been found combat logging. The problem is that, even with video evidence, there is no way to ensure that the combat log complaint is genuine.
So you had someone CL on you, made a video, and sent it to Frontier. Why won't they do anything about it? Because for the most part there's simply no way to tell whether that other commander was combat logging, or whether YOU tweaked your system to stop exchanging data with that particular commander. I'm not going to put up a manual here, but the fact is: With very little effort it is possible to find out the IP of individual commanders as they join an instance with you. You can then make them combat log at any time. Record a video of them allegedly combat logging, through no fault of their own, send it to FD, and complain about yet another combat logger.
This works even when you have multiple people in your instance. With some automation you could even map this onto a keyboard combination, to be used in the middle of the fight. That way, video recording wouldn't even pick up on you forging a combat log.
Now you might say, why would anyone do that? The answer is simple: Because some people like to see the world burn, for the lulz. They are not playing the game, they are playing people. It's not about destroying ships, it's about creating frustration, anger and problems for other players. That's the definition of griefing, really. This is of course not true for all PvP players and far be it for me to suggest that nobody should be allowed to roleplay a mass-murderer. That's all fine as long as there are appropriate ingame consequences. I'm also firmly against combat logging, it simply sucks. Combat logging is cheating.
The problem is that combat logging is just as big a problem as griefers. When players stop playing out of frustration of other people's bad behavior, it doesn't matter whether said bad behavior was combat logging or griefing.
Now you might say, why not introduce a kind of karma system for combat logging? You know, a reputation value that goes down each time you combat log, so consequences could be applied to serial combat loggers without risking false positives. But sadly even this isn't foolproof, since there's no way to tell whether a group of people might do this to the same player in succession to make it look like he's a combat logger, when in fact they are just trying to cause him to get smacked by FD.
Another idea was to make ships stay in instances even if the player left - but the moment they implement this, I will become able to kill EVERY player, regardless of how powerful their ship is, and there will be nothing they can do against that. I could just make them combat log and then destroy their ship at leisure.
Finally, someone may say that this is ridiculous and nobody would go to such lengths make it look like someone else combat logged. But that would be extremely naive. No doubt it'll come up though. If it does, my suggestion to the reader is to take notes of the names
What can Frontier do? Honestly, not much, other than to switch to either a client/server system with cloud-hosted server instances, or a hybrid system like I proposed a while back, where at least busy locations such as CGs, stations under attack, and similar hotspots would run big C/S "instances". This would also enable much higher player counts at those locations. It wouldn't help in deep space of course.
Another thing Frontier could do is change their TURN implementation a bit, which could make it very hard to selectively cause someone to look like he's combat logging. I'm not going to post that in public however, that's something for PMs.
Bottom line: Frontier isn't ignoring the issue of combat logging. They simply can not - no, MUST not trust us players, not even with video evidence.
EDIT: And before anyone says that I'm making all this up, there's an easy way to prove it to you: We can meet up and I can send you a video that shows you combat logging
We have multiple threads (here, here and many more) bemoaning the alleged inactivity of Frontier with regards to Combat Logging. In fact, any time someone brings up sealclubbing, ganking or similar things, the immediate response is that this is somehow the fault of so many people combat logging. Why don't Frontier do something against commanders who combat log?
Because they can't.
Let me elaborate: They are perfectly able to restrict access to players who have been found combat logging. The problem is that, even with video evidence, there is no way to ensure that the combat log complaint is genuine.
So you had someone CL on you, made a video, and sent it to Frontier. Why won't they do anything about it? Because for the most part there's simply no way to tell whether that other commander was combat logging, or whether YOU tweaked your system to stop exchanging data with that particular commander. I'm not going to put up a manual here, but the fact is: With very little effort it is possible to find out the IP of individual commanders as they join an instance with you. You can then make them combat log at any time. Record a video of them allegedly combat logging, through no fault of their own, send it to FD, and complain about yet another combat logger.
This works even when you have multiple people in your instance. With some automation you could even map this onto a keyboard combination, to be used in the middle of the fight. That way, video recording wouldn't even pick up on you forging a combat log.
Now you might say, why would anyone do that? The answer is simple: Because some people like to see the world burn, for the lulz. They are not playing the game, they are playing people. It's not about destroying ships, it's about creating frustration, anger and problems for other players. That's the definition of griefing, really. This is of course not true for all PvP players and far be it for me to suggest that nobody should be allowed to roleplay a mass-murderer. That's all fine as long as there are appropriate ingame consequences. I'm also firmly against combat logging, it simply sucks. Combat logging is cheating.
The problem is that combat logging is just as big a problem as griefers. When players stop playing out of frustration of other people's bad behavior, it doesn't matter whether said bad behavior was combat logging or griefing.
Now you might say, why not introduce a kind of karma system for combat logging? You know, a reputation value that goes down each time you combat log, so consequences could be applied to serial combat loggers without risking false positives. But sadly even this isn't foolproof, since there's no way to tell whether a group of people might do this to the same player in succession to make it look like he's a combat logger, when in fact they are just trying to cause him to get smacked by FD.
Another idea was to make ships stay in instances even if the player left - but the moment they implement this, I will become able to kill EVERY player, regardless of how powerful their ship is, and there will be nothing they can do against that. I could just make them combat log and then destroy their ship at leisure.
Finally, someone may say that this is ridiculous and nobody would go to such lengths make it look like someone else combat logged. But that would be extremely naive. No doubt it'll come up though. If it does, my suggestion to the reader is to take notes of the names
What can Frontier do? Honestly, not much, other than to switch to either a client/server system with cloud-hosted server instances, or a hybrid system like I proposed a while back, where at least busy locations such as CGs, stations under attack, and similar hotspots would run big C/S "instances". This would also enable much higher player counts at those locations. It wouldn't help in deep space of course.
Another thing Frontier could do is change their TURN implementation a bit, which could make it very hard to selectively cause someone to look like he's combat logging. I'm not going to post that in public however, that's something for PMs.
Bottom line: Frontier isn't ignoring the issue of combat logging. They simply can not - no, MUST not trust us players, not even with video evidence.
EDIT: And before anyone says that I'm making all this up, there's an easy way to prove it to you: We can meet up and I can send you a video that shows you combat logging
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