Food for Thought : Possible Solution to Combat Logging & Stacking of Missions?

[Cmdr Eran Mintor]

Hello Commanders,

I would like to put forth an idea for discussion that I had today and it's one that I don't believe I've seen suggested before.

First let me say that I fully see the merit in the 15 second logout timer. No game should force us to play and sometimes it may be necessary to use the logout timer so you can take care of urgent matters such as a crying baby, answering the phone/door, and other necessary things that require immediate attention. You can't always dock at station before you log out or get to a safe place, and I fully understand this.

There has been a lot of discussion turning into arguments over such a simple concept as combat logging. While many defend it, it can be and is often abused by PvP pilots when they are losing a battle to log to Menu, jump to Solo and repair at station, then jump back into Open to continue their actions. This is largely frowned upon but so long as they didn't forcefully disconnect before the 15 second timer is up, FDev has stated they will not punish any persons using this mechanic.

I propose that after a person has used the 15 second combat log-out timer they must wait an additional 15 minutes* until they are able to log back into any mode of play. This only would affect those who log-out in the middle of combat and has nothing to do when they log-out regularly. This also will not affect people who lost connection or did alt+f4 as those are separate ways of closing the game (alt + f4 has also been stated by devs to be an unsanctioned way to quit the game). To my knowledge, the game/server can recognize the difference.

*(The timer also does not need to be 15 minutes, it could be something as short as 5-10 minutes to still have effect.)

This will force PvPers to either commit to a fight or go without playing for 15 minutes. A large argument that is pro-logout is based around the opinion that the majority of logouts are done by defenseless traders or newbies, however my personal experience says this isn't always the case. A large misconception I've noticed is people tend to think that the PvP community are all griefers out to fry small fish. In fact there are quite a few anti-pirates who fight these such "bad-guys" and they often are foiled by this log-out timer, allowing the "bad-guys" to continue unabated.

(I've removed the section about mission stacking as it is secondary and a timer wouldn't be a good fix for that).

Thoughts?

 

[Weps]

This also in essence will kill two birds with one stone and remove the mode-swapping that is common to stack missions.

I don't understand exactly why this would be the case. The 15second timer isn't triggered when logging out from the station after picking up missions.

 

[Kazacy]

In my humble opinion if you choose to log out with aggression from another player in open mode, you should be banned at least a week from open. Clearly you don't want to play in open with another human beings, and in this way the game will help you to choose the mode you really like.

 

[Cmdr Eran Mintor]

I don't understand exactly why this would be the case. The 15second timer isn't triggered when logging out from the station after picking up missions.

True, and I am no coder, however I would think it wouldn't be too difficult to make the 15 min countdown apply to both the 15 sec logout and regular logout, however if this seems too much of a pain I suppose it can just focus on the 15 second timer.

Edit: I should add that Arena/CQC would be an exception to the rule.

 

[Lemonhoko]

Hello Commanders,

I would like to put forth an idea for discussion that I had today and it's one that I don't believe I've seen suggested before.

First let me say that I fully see the merit in the 15 second logout timer. No game should force us to play and sometimes it may be necessary to use the logout timer so you can take care of urgent matters such as a crying baby, answering the phone/door, and other necessary things that require immediate attention. You can't always dock at station before you log out or get to a safe place, and I fully understand this.

There has been a lot of discussion turning into arguments over such a simple concept as combat logging. While many defend it, it can be and is often abused by PvP pilots when they are losing a battle to log to Menu, jump to Solo and repair at station, then jump back into Open to continue their actions. This is largely frowned upon but so long as they didn't forcefully disconnect before the 15 second timer is up, FDev has stated they will not punish any persons using this mechanic.

I propose that after a person has used the 15 second log-out timer they must wait an additional 15 minutes until they are able to log back into any mode of play.

This will force PvPers to either commit to a fight or go without playing for 15 minutes. A large argument that is pro-logout is based around the opinion that the majority of logouts are done by defenseless traders or newbies, however my personal experience says this isn't always the case. A large misconception I've noticed is people tend to think that the PvP community are all griefers out to fry small fish. In fact there are quite a few anti-pirates who fight these such "bad-guys" and they often are foiled by this log-out timer, allowing the "bad-guys" to continue unabated.

This also in essence will kill two birds with one stone and remove the mode-swapping that is common to stack missions.

Further let me say I am not against people making money either, however it does seem strange that in order to get good missions you must swap modes. It is tedious and unnecessary from a design perspective. Hopefully with 2.1 we will see a great increase to the way missions work but if this isn't enough, I would hope the mission boards will become more robust with larger options of missions reducing the need to even mode-swap.

Thoughts?

I get a phone call, log out to answer it. It turned out to be a wrong number.
Now I have to wait 15 minutes to log back in?

Serious?

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In my humble opinion if you choose to log out with aggression from another player in open mode, you should be banned at least a week from open. Clearly you don't want to play in open with another human beings, and in this way the game will help you to choose the mode you really like.

My kid just fell and hurt hilmself during a battle in open. I log out to attend to him...
I should be penalized a week for this?

Serious?

 

[Cmdr Eran Mintor]

In my humble opinion if you choose to log out with aggression from another player in open mode, you should be banned at least a week from open. Clearly you don't want to play in open with another human beings, and in this way the game will help you to choose the mode you really like.

You certainly are welcome to that opinion however I believe you are overlooking there is sometimes a need to be able to log-out at a moments notice, whether in combat or not, as I mentioned due to RL emergencies.

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I get a phone call, log out to answer it. It turned out to be a wrong number.
Now I have to wait 15 minutes to log back in?

Serious?

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My kid just fell and hurt hilmself during a battle in open. I log out to attend to him...
I should be penalized a week for this?

Serious?

Serious. How many times does that happen to you on average? Do you have someone who doesn't like you who gave your number to a million telemarketers?

Edit: Further I should add how often does that happen to you while you're in the middle of combat? And it's not like it has to be 15 minutes. Could be 10, but something reasonable that doesn't enable the abuse that combat timers currently allow.

 

[Kazacy]

My kid just fell and hurt hilmself during a battle in open. I log out to attend to him...
I should be penalized a week for this?

Serious?

Yeah why not, after a week you can enter in the game again.

 

[Frank]

Just imagine how you'd feel if Frontier fumbles and drops your carrier, and then refuses to let you back in for fifteen minutes. I got disconnected last night. I don't know if it was them or my service provider that did it, but it didn't matter because I just logged back in again.

 

[Julio Montega]

I wouldn't mind having a 15min timer before ogging in again, but there is a simple problem.
Where do you want to keep the timer running?
Client? Yeah, sure, just close the game client and circumvent the mechanic.
Server? Nope, not sure to login to the same login server (which handles that kind o' stuff) again.

I don't think that solution will be working without an easy way to circumvent it,
additionally some posts here made some good points against it (although i cannot understand why you logout when you get a phonecall).

 

[Lemonhoko]

You certainly are welcome to that opinion however I believe you are overlooking there is sometimes a need to be able to log-out at a moments notice, whether in combat or not, as I mentioned due to RL emergencies.

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Serious. How many times does that happen to you on average? Do you have someone who doesn't like you who gave your number to a million telemarketers?

Edit: Further I should add how often does that happen to you while you're in the middle of combat? And it's not like it has to be 15 minutes. Could be 10, but something reasonable that doesn't enable the abuse that combat timers currently allow.

If I did not break any game rules...and logged out how the game wants me to, I should be able to log in again anytime I want to play.
Stopping me or anyone else to do so is a critical error this game can make.
I do not support this.

 

[Cmdr Eran Mintor]

Just imagine how you'd feel if Frontier fumbles and drops your carrier, and then refuses to let you back in for fifteen minutes. I got disconnected last night. I don't know if it was them or my service provider that did it, but it didn't matter because I just logged back in again.

This is mainly regarding the combat logout timer which you would unlikely have when your connection drops.

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I wouldn't mind having a 15min timer before ogging in again, but there is a simple problem.
Where do you want to keep the timer running?
Client? Yeah, sure, just close the game client and circumvent the mechanic.
Server? Nope, not sure to login to the same login server (which handles that kind o' stuff) again.

I don't think that solution will be working without an easy way to circumvent it,
additionally some posts here made some good points against it (although i cannot understand why you logout when you get a phonecall).

Hopefully it would be server-side. Perhaps my lack of knowledge of the way servers store data doesn't help but I don't see how you would circumvent that?

 

[Lemonhoko]

This is mainly regarding the combat logout timer which you would unlikely have when your connection drops.

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Hopefully it would be server-side. Perhaps my lack of knowledge of the way servers store data doesn't help but I don't see how you would circumvent that?

So how will you or frontier tell if its a dropped connection or intentional combat log?

 

[Cmdr Eran Mintor]

If I did not break any game rules...and logged out how the game wants me to, I should be able to log in again anytime I want to play.
Stopping me or anyone else to do so is a critical error this game can make.
I do not support this.

Out of curiosity do you play in Open?

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So how will you or frontier tell if its a dropped connection or intentional combat log?

Dropped connections don't use the combat log timer afaik.

 

[Lemonhoko]

Out of curiosity do you play in Open?

99% of my time in open, yes...

I agree this game has problems, but penalizing people following the rules is not a good idea.
Even if its only 15 minutes....some of us have limited time to play games.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Dropped connections don't use the combat log timer afaik.

.... so some players would be "encouraged" to pull the plug to avoid a 15 minute delay before they could rejoin the game. That doesn't seem to be dealing with the "combat logging" issue (which, by Frontier's definition, does not include the use of the 15-second graceful exit).

 

[Cmdr Eran Mintor]

99% of my time in open, yes...

I agree this game has problems, but penalizing people following the rules is not a good idea.
Even if its only 15 minutes....some of us have limited time to play games.

The reason I asked is because I have heard very little about people using the combat log timer in other modes of play. You feel that this would limit you greatly even if it was lowered to 10 minutes? How often do you use the timer and in what situations?

 

[Weps]

Don't know if it's possible, but how about automatic high waking. When you combat log, instead of the timer, the ship automatically selects the nearest star system (alignment may or may not be considered) , engages the FSD and as soon as the jump starts, the game quits to menu. Quitting to menu sooner is not possible while in combat. All other inhibiting mechanics apply (enemies may lock you to prevent you from logging out).

 

[Cmdr Eran Mintor]

.... so some players would be "encouraged" to pull the plug to avoid a 15 minute delay before they could rejoin the game. That doesn't seem to be dealing with the "combat logging" issue (which, by Frontier's definition, does not include the use of the 15-second graceful exit).

Pulling the plug, by frontiers definition, is an illegal way to exit the game and something they said they are monitoring and enforcing.

 

[Lemonhoko]

The reason I asked is because I have heard very little about people using the combat log timer in other modes of play. You feel that this would limit you greatly even if it was lowered to 10 minutes? How often do you use the timer and in what situations?

I log out when my dog whines and needs to go potty, can happen at anytime during game play...or when my wife calls me to help her with something...again can happen at any time during game play...or if shes having a seizure(she has cp) and can happen at any time.
Many things interrupt my play at times..and other times, I may play for an hour or more without any interruption.
But its just not me...how about the 100's of working and stay home parents trying to juggle more than playing a game while doing things around the house.

I guess what im saying is...I paid for this game to be able to access it when it is running properly. I shouldnt be held back for any reasons...unless I broke TOS or am banned for some reason.

 

[crushdepth]

Are you serious? You want a timer stopping people from logging back into the game? I've got a better idea. You play it your own way, as befits your own personal circumstances (including crying baby, which I fully understand) and I'll play it according to mine.